You are encouraged to attend the defence. The details of the defence and attendance information is included below:  

Date: July 21, 2025 
Time: 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM (PT)  

Defence mode: Remote 
Virtual Attendance: via Zoom 

LINK TO JOIN: Please contact the Office of Graduate Administration for information regarding remote attendance for online defences. 

To ensure the defence proceeds with no interruptions, please mute your audio and video on entry and do not inadvertently share your screen. The meeting will be locked to entry 5 minutes after it begins: please ensure you are on time.

Thesis entitled: FROM CUBICLES TO COUCHES: EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HYBRID WORKPLACE, ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT, WORKPLACE ANXIETY AND JOB ENGAGEMENT

Abstract: Although hybrid workplace arrangements are increasingly touted as beneficial for employee engagement, less is known about when and why such structural flexibility may produce unintended consequences under conditions of resource threat. Drawing on the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this study develops and tests a moderated mediation model to examine how hybrid workplace (HW) structures influence job engagement (JE), contingent on the effects of workplace anxiety (WA) and mediated by organizational, political engagement (OPE). We propose that while HW represents a valuable contextual resource, its effects on engagement are not uniformly experienced; instead, psychological anxiety may activate compensatory behavioral strategies that alter these outcomes.

To test this framework, we conducted a time-lagged survey of N= 152 white-collar employees across Bangladesh's manufacturing and telecommunications sectors who work in a Hybrid workplace setup. Consistent with predictions, results indicate that HW positively predicts OPE, with the effect significantly more substantial under high WA. Furthermore, OPE mediates the interaction between HW and WA in predicting JE, such that the indirect effect of HW on JE via OPE is amplified when WA is high. These findings suggest that anxious employees in hybrid settings may engage politically as a resource-preserving response, paradoxically undermining engagement.

Theoretically, this study extends COR theory by illustrating how structural resources and resource threats interact to shape political engagement and impact overall employees' job engagement.

Defence Committee:  
Chair: Dr. Zoe Meletis, University of Northern British Columbia  
Supervisor: Dr. Darren Brown, University of Northern British Columbia  
Committee Member: Dr. Wootae Chun, University of Northern British Columbia  
Committee Member: Dr. Somayeh Bahmannia, University of Canberra
External Examiner: Dr. Kevin B Lowe, University of Sydney