International Business Research; Vol. 10, No. 2; 2017 ISSN 1913-9004 E-ISSN 1913-9012 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 63 Identified Research Gaps in Employee Engagement Y. Anuradha Iddagoda 1 , H. H. D. N. P. Opatha 1 1 Department of Human Resource Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka Correspondence: Y. Anuradha Iddagoda, Department of Human Resource Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka. E-mail: anuradha_iddagoda@yahoo.com Received: October 18, 2016 Accepted: December 19, 2016 Online Published: December 26, 2016 doi:10.5539/ibr.v10n2p63 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ibr.v10n2p63 Abstract This research paper sets out to investigate the research gaps in employee engagement for systematic empirical investigations, in order to substantiate future studies. A desk research has contributed to identify seven gaps in employee engagement. The first gap which is about the conceptual confusion, can be minimized by formulating a working definition of employee engagement. The nonexistence of theoretical arguments and empirical tests on the impact of the religiosity on employee engagement, in both the Sri Lankan and in the international contexts, has been identified as the second gap. The third gap has been identified to be the fact that the rapport between personal character and employee engagement being, neither theoretically argued nor empirically tested, in Sri Lankan and the international contexts. The fourth gap is the unavailability of studies in the Sri Lankan context as to how the high performance work practices (HPWPs) impact on employee engagement. The fifth gap identified is the shortage of empirical evidence regarding the link between employee engagement and organizational financial performance in the Sri Lankan context. Absence of empirical evidence on employee job performance to be an intervening variable for employee engagement and organizational financial performance is brought up as the sixth gap. The same absence is found in empirical evidence about religiosity, HPWPs, personal character, leadership and work life balance that significantly affect employee engagement in a nomological network in the Sri Lankan context as well as in the international context, which is the seventh Gap. Keywords: employee engagement, research gaps, human resource management 1. Introduction Understanding the essence of employee engagement is a major concern of both the business and academic spheres today. The reason for this trend is its links with the outcome that contributes to employee job performance (Anitha, 2014) and organizational financial performance (Harter et al., 2002). The impact of high performance work practices (HPWPs) on organizational performance is also evident. Appelbaum et al., (2011) bring in theoretical evidence regarding the link between HPWPs and employee engagement. Gallup (2013) in order to introduce the status of employee engagement in the global arena, brings to light the employee engagement levels in years 2011 and 2012. The study which was conducted from 2011 to 2012 among the 142 countries discovered that 13% of employees are engaged in their jobs and organizations, 63% are not engaged and 24% are actively disengaged. As a country, United States of America (USA) has the highest percentage of 30% engaged workers. As it was revealed in Gallup's study, in Sri Lanka (from 2011 to 2012), 14% employees are engaged, 62% are not engaged and 23% are actively disengaged. Gallup (2010) has made similar attempts to find the relationship between religiosity and employee engagement, though this study was not based on hypothetico-deductive approach. According to Iddagoda et al., (2016) employee engagement is a rarely understood concept, even though it is a popular word in the management circles. Saks & Gruman (2014) have also come up with a similar view; that although there are large number of research studies and publications on employee engagement, unclear areas or ambiguities still remain unanswered. The Reason is the researchers not paying enough attention to the meaning, theory and measurement of employee engagement, even though they have a passion of research on employee engagement. As a result, the main objective of this paper is to discover research gaps in the literature of employee engagement. It is hoped that discovered research gaps become particular aspects of interest to the future researchers to carryout pure research that will add to the general body of knowledge in employee engagement.