National Culture and Employee Engagement: An Ecological Analysis Across 59 Countries

ABSTRACT Employee engagement varies substantially across countries, yet research has rarely examined whether national cultural values are systematically associated with these differences. This study uses an ecological design to analyze the relationship between Hofstede's six cultural dimensions and country‐level employee engagement across 59 countries from 2013 to 2025, drawing on Gallup engagement estimates, Hofstede cultural scores, and World Bank economic indicators. Multiple regression analyses, supported by year‐by‐year models, reveal three findings. First, in the 2025 model, power distance and individualism are positively associated with engagement and masculinity is negatively associated, with cultural and structural variables explaining 57% of cross‐country variance. Second, the masculinity‐engagement relationship has strengthened monotonically over the 13‐year window, suggesting that competition‐oriented cultural environments are becoming increasingly costly to engagement. Third, indulgence is not directly associated with engagement but robustly predicts lower active disengagement, indicating that the cultural correlates of engagement and active disengagement are partially distinct. The findings extend cross‐cultural management theory and suggest that multinational organizations should interpret engagement metrics within their cultural context.