The Effects on social support and work engagement with scrum events

Abstract

One of the core values of the Agile Manifesto is “individuals and interactions over processes and tools.” Scrum implements interaction through key events (Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Retrospective). There is limited work done on how these events influence perceived social support and work engagement. This paper examines perceived social support as a strengthening factor on work engagement in an agile work environment. Drawing upon the Job Demands-Resource Model, the research question is how do Scrum events relate to social support and what effect do they have on work engagement? We conducted an online survey with 132 Scrum professionals and analyzed the data using structural equation modelling. Results show that the Scrum event Retrospective strengthened social support. Moreover, social support is positively related to work engagement. The research contributes to the limited empirical understanding on perceived social support as well as work engagement in an agile work environment. It provides companies with an understanding of the importance of Retrospectives as a Scrum event.