Introduction
Decent work for everyone is the eighth goal of the sustainable developmental goals (SDG) of the United Nations. Additionally, the tenth goal describes the social and economic inclusion of vulnerable people (United Nations, 2022; SDG Nederland, Reference Nederlandn.d.). People with a vulnerableFootnote 1 position on the labour market are, for instance: persons with disabilities; persons with a migration background; people that are long-term unemployed; and youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET) (Ingold and Valizade, Reference Ingold and Valizade2017; Kersten et al., Reference Kersten, Van Woerkom, Geuskens and Blonk2023; Alves et al., Reference Alves, Ballo, Nilsen, Lundberg, Lillebråten and Bernstrøm2023). Work is important for meeting individuals’ psychosocial needs and in forming individual identity (Waddell and Burton, Reference Waddell and Burton2006). For individuals with a disability, for example, work helps during recovery, can lead to better health outcomes, and can improve wellbeing (Waddell and Burton, Reference Waddell and Burton2006). To increase the chances of people in vulnerable positions to participate in the labour market there are active labour market policies (ALMP) (e.g., wage subsidies), serving as a form of social security (Borghouts and Freese, Reference Borghouts and Freese2022). Social security has three functions: income protection in the event of a social risk; promotion of labour market participation; and risk prevention (Borghouts and Freese, Reference Borghouts and Freese2022). Still, vulnerable people face challenges in finding and maintaining work, including increased systemic discrimination in accessing decent work (Burgess et al., Reference Burgess, Connell and Winterton2013). Researchers start to acknowledge that employers play a significant role in entering the labour market (Orton et al., Reference Orton, Green, Atfield and Barnes2019), and that work is the greatest form of social security (Borghouts and Freese, Reference Borghouts and Freese2022).
Previously, labour market research was mostly focused on the supply-side of the labour market (i.e., the role of employees). However, recently the demand-side of the labour market (i.e., the role of employers) is receiving increasing attention in studies concerning the employment of vulnerable people (Ingold and Stuart, Reference Ingold and Stuart2015; Bredgaard, Reference Bredgaard2018; Van Berkel, Reference Van Berkel2021). The growing recognition for the role of employers in the employment of vulnerable groups can be supported by stakeholder theory (Freeman, Reference Freeman1984), which posits that organisations have responsibilities not only to shareholders, but to all stakeholders that are affected by or can affect the organisation’s objectives. From this perspective, employers are not merely private economic actors but also societal stakeholders with a role in addressing social challenges, such as the inclusion of vulnerable groups in the labour market. The role of employers in the employment of vulnerable people is commonly being referred to as ‘employer engagement’.
One broad definition of employer engagement is provided by Van Berkel et al. (Reference Van Berkel, Ingold, McGurk, Boselie and Bredgaard2017): ‘the active involvement of employers in addressing the societal challenge of promoting the labour market participation of vulnerable groups’. However, divergent conceptualisations of employer engagement are used. In some studies employer engagement refers to the employment of individuals from vulnerable groups (e.g., Hamilton, Reference Hamilton, Ingold and McGurk2023), while in others it refers to participation in ALMP (e.g., using subsidies) (e.g., Ravn, Reference Ravn2023). Scholars argue that employer engagement extends beyond employing vulnerable people, encompassing behaviours, motives, and attitudes of employers (see: Ingold and Valizade, Reference Ingold and Valizade2015; Bredgaard, Reference Bredgaard2018). Although these divergent views might suggest that employer engagement is primarily a behavioural concept, research indicates that employers’ behaviours do not always align with their attitudes or intentions (Bredgaard, Reference Bredgaard2018) (i.e., employers can be highly motivated to be employ allegedly vulnerable people, but not bring this into practice). In this regard, the integrated behavioural model stresses the importance of for example context (Blonk, Reference Blonk2018). This so-called attitude-behaviour gap highlights that ‘employer engagement’ cannot be reduced to actual hiring practices alone but that it also involves underlying dispositions and decision-making processes. From the perspective of stakeholder theory (Freeman, Reference Freeman1984), this conceptual ambiguity can be explained by the fact that employers operate within a network of multiple internal and external stakeholders – such as shareholders, customers, employees, public institutions, and the broader community – each with their own expectations, interests, and influences (Pedersen, Reference Pedersen2006). Different conceptualisations of employer engagement may consider different stakeholder logics: for instance, research focused on participation in ALMP may view employer engagement as a response to institutional or governmental expectations, while other studies may take a different approach emphasising the employer’s ethical stance or social responsibility. These varying perspectives can contribute to the fragmentation of the concept in the literature.
Studying employer engagement in different ways, and lack of consensus about what the concept entails is problematic as this makes it difficult to compare results across studies. Because of this ambiguity, researchers express the need for clarity regarding the conceptualisation of employer engagement (Van Berkel et al., Reference Van Berkel, Ingold, McGurk, Boselie and Bredgaard2017; Ingold and McGurk, Reference Ingold, McGurk, Ingold and McGurk2023). In this study, the following research question will be studied: what are the different conceptualisations of employer engagement in the case of employing allegedly vulnerable people?
By conducting a scoping review of the employer engagement literature, we aim to further support (interdisciplinary) research on the employment of vulnerable groupsFootnote 2 . By analysing the different ways in which employer engagement is used – whether as behaviour (e.g., participation in ALMP), attitude, or motivation – this study provides a clearer and more structured understanding of the term. This conceptual clarity is crucial for enhancing the comparability of empirical findings, supporting interdisciplinary dialogue, and guiding future research.
Additionally, this paper offers important societal value by clarifying what employer engagement entails. A more consistent conceptualisation enables policy makers, labour market institutions, and employers themselves to better understand the various forms employer engagement can take, and how these relate to broader goals such as inclusive employment and social justice (as formulated in sustainable development goals (SDG) eight and ten). It fosters a shared language and understanding across stakeholder groups, which is essential for effective collaboration in designing and implementing policies (Olejniczak et al., Reference Olejniczak, Śliwowski and Leeuw2020).
Method
A scoping review was conducted to map the conceptualisations of employer engagement. Scoping reviews aim to find all relevant data from the literature to provide a comprehensive overview of research fields (Xiao and Watson, Reference Xiao and Watson2019). Unlike a systematic review, a scoping review allows for broad research questions – such as exploring conceptualisations – while enabling a systematic data search to gather all relevant data, enhancing the review’s reliability and reproducibility (Munn et al., Reference Munn, Peters, Stern, Tufanaru, McArthur and Aromataris2018). This review adheres to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines for reporting literature searches (Tricco et al., Reference Tricco, Lillie, Zarin, O’Brien, Colquhoun, Levac and Straus2018).
Scoping the literature and search strategy
To thoroughly understand employer engagement, various research traditions were reviewed, ensuring a comprehensive topic map through diverse documents (Wong et al., Reference Wong, Greenhalgh, Westhorp, Buckingham and Pawson2013). Employer engagement is a complex concept used in different fields including but not limited to social policy, HRM, rehabilitation, and organisational studies. To ensure that the diverse areas of employer engagement were covered in the search strategy below, this article was collaboratively authored by researchers from diverse disciplines associated with employer engagement (e.g., social policy, HRM, organisational psychology, and social sciences). Additionally, the researchers consulted with search specialists of the university library for improving the search strategy as well as for advice on common synonyms and relevant terms from other research fields.
To develop a good search strategy the researchers conducted trail searches in the period between February 2024 until April 2024. The search string was developed and iteratively. First, relevant search terms were sought. Because the understanding of the concept employer engagement is central in this paper, ‘employer engagement’ was considered a conditional term. However, some articles use synonyms in the title, keywords, or abstracts, such as ‘employer involvement’ or ‘employer commitment’. ‘Employer participation’ also emerged as a possible synonym. A test search including this term yielded more articles, of which we screened the first 100. However these were either already identified through other terms, or did not discuss employer engagement in the main text. As such, employer participation was excluded from the final search string, since it did not contribute to additional relevant literature. Employer engagement, employer involvement, and employer commitment were included in the final search string.
Second, as the objective of this paper was to investigate the conceptualisation of employer engagement regarding the employment allegedly vulnerable persons, the search string terms needed to contain a term referring to people in such a position. There were different brainstorm sessions to investigate suitable search terms, the search terms were based on key words and their synonyms of key papers in the field of employer engagement. The second part of the search string contained a term referring to a vulnerable group or other relevant related terms to employer engagement. Terms concerning vulnerable groups were for example ‘disability’ or ‘marginalised groups’. Regarding social policy terms such as ‘ALMP’, ‘social policy’, or ‘labour market integration’ were included, and regarding rehabilitation, human resource management (HRM), and the organisation side terms like ‘human resource strategy’, ‘HR’, or ‘rehabilitation’ were included. This article defines vulnerable workers based on previous research on labour market inclusion (Ingold and Valizade, Reference Ingold and Valizade2017; Kersten et al., Reference Kersten, Van Woerkom, Geuskens and Blonk2023) as people with a disability, people with a migration background, people that are long-term unemployed, and youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) (Alves et al., Reference Alves, Ballo, Nilsen, Lundberg, Lillebråten and Bernstrøm2023). Age, gender, and pregnancy were excluded, as these groups are typically not classified as vulnerable for this research domain.
To address the research question a full search string was developed by combining the first (e.g., ‘employer engagement’) and the second part (e.g., ‘vulnerable workers’, ‘ALMP’, or ‘human resource strategy’, etc.) by the Boolean operator AND. The operator OR was used to sum the search terms within the two parts. It was decided to develop a concise version of the search string, prioritising specificity without compromising comprehensiveness. The full search string can be found in the Appendix. Articles from three databases were collected, including Web of Science, Scopus, and PsycINFO. These databases cover business journals and social scientific papers. Scoping other databases (e.g., JSTOR and ProQuest) resulted in either the same documents as in the aforementioned databases or in irrelevant documents.
In the final selection of documents, citation tracking and snowballing were used iteratively to identify additional relevant papers and grey literature (e.g., governmental reports). Additionally, grey literature was found by contacting authors that have published four or more included documents for conference papers or policy briefings. The addition of grey literature in a scoping review creates a more complete and more comprehensive overview of a topic (Xiao and Watson, Reference Xiao and Watson2019).
Inclusion and exclusion criteria
The following inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied: (1) employer engagement had to be related to the active involvement of employing people with a vulnerable position on the labour market (documents focusing on ALMP were included, as their purpose is to improve labour market access for vulnerable groups (Borghouts and Freese, Reference Borghouts and Freese2022)); (2) the included paper could not be another (systematic) review; (3) the paper was written in English, for accessibility purposes; (4) the conditional term ‘employer engagement’ was defined, conceptualised, or operationalised in the paper; and (5) the paper was peer-reviewed. The included grey literature consisted of policy reports, conference papers, and scientific books.
Selection of documents
The search string resulted in a database of 327 documents retrieved on April 18, 2024; 140 from Scopus, 76 of PsycINFO, and 111 of Web of Science. The documents were imported in Rayyan (Ouzzani et al., Reference Ouzzani, Hammady, Fedorowicz and Elmagarmid2016). The 128 duplicates found by Rayyan were checked and deleted, after which 199 documents remained that required screening. The first selection of documents was based on title and abstract, and the first three inclusion criteria. Two of the researchers evaluated 199 the abstracts; 117 were excluded based on the first inclusion criterion, 6 were excluded based on the second, and no articles were excluded based on the third criterion. Two researchers fully completed this phase with an alignment of 94 per cent. Any disagreement was handled by discussing the articles; almost all disagreement was resolved because one of the researchers overlooked a part of the abstract (e.g., methodology or background).
Seventy-six documents remained for a full article scan, where all inclusion criteria were assessed. Seven articles were excluded based on first inclusion criterion and forty were excluded based the fourth. This resulted in twenty-nine articles being included. The additional reference and citation check resulted in an additional twelve articles, one conference paper, four policy/research reports, and ten book chapters. Moreover, contacting authors of more than four included documents resulted in two extra policy documents being included. Some papers were initially overlooked because they belong to grey literature, making them absent from the databases used. Other articles were missed as they lacked terms like employer engagement in their title, keywords, or abstract, as these topics were not central to their research focus. These articles, however, did include the concept of employer engagement in their work.
On June 4, 2025, an additional search was conducted. The same search string was used to retrieve articles from the same databases between April 18, 2024 until the June 4, 2025. A total of seventeen articles were found of with no duplicates. These articles went through full article scan and four articles were excluded based on exclusion criterion one, two articles were excluded based on exclusion criterion two, and six were excluded based on exclusion criterion four. Resulting in an addition of five articles. For an overview of the article inclusion see Figure 1.
Figure 1. A prisma figure of the search and selection procedure. This PRISMA flow diagram illustrates the systematic process used to identify, screen, and include relevant documents in the scoping review. The flow shows the number of records identified through database searches, the removal of duplicates, and the stepwise exclusions based on title/abstract screening and full-text eligibility assessment, resulting in the final set of sixty-three included documents. Adapted from PRISMA guidelines (Page et al., Reference Page, McKenzie, Bossuyt, Boutron, Hoffmann, Mulrow, Shamseer, Tetzlaff, Akl, Brennan, Chou, Glanville, Grimshaw, Hróbjartsson, Lalu, Li, Loder, Mayo-Wilson, McDonald, McGuinness, Stewart, Thomas, Tricco, Welch, Whiting and Moher2021).
Data extraction
The following data was extracted from the included articles and put in a spreadsheet: (1) author(s); (2) publication date; (3) type of study; (4) qualitative or quantitative analysis; (5) discipline; (6) theories used; (7) conceptualisation of employer engagement; and (8) the coding from the data analysis. For a complete overview of the included documents, see Table 1.
Table 1. Overview of the included studies on employer engagement
Analysis strategy
In the spreadsheet with the extracted data, a thematic analysis was applied to find overarching themes in the definitions of employer engagement (Clarke and Braun, Reference Clarke and Braun2017). Open coding revealed recurring themes regarding employer engagement (e.g., implementing certain policies). The inductive, selective coding resulted in four different forms of employer engagement. We applied stakeholder theory (Freeman, Reference Freeman1984) as a deductive lens to the data to understand how various stakeholders were reflected in the conceptualisations be identifying different stakeholder groups. The first stakeholder group focused on the engagement of the organisation as an entity. The second and third group are internal stakeholders of the organisation, namely HRM and line managers. The fourth stakeholder group of employer engagement is focused on external stakeholders. The coding process was done by two of the authors, and finished after inter-coding agreement was achieved. An overview of the perspectives and codes is presented in Table 2.
Table 2. Coding of the levels and themes of employer engagement
Results
The analysis of the final literature sample showed that the included documents are relatively recent, with the eldest document dating back to 2011. A substantial portion of the documents – eighteen, representing almost a third of the dataset – were published in the year 2023. While most of the included research is conducted in Norway, the United Kingdom, and Denmark, the sample also includes research from the United States of America, the Netherlands, Australia, China, Canada, Austria, Italy, and Germany. In these studies, various research methods were employed: of the sixty-three found documents, twenty-four are based on qualitative research methods, sixteen are based on quantitative research methods, eleven on mixed-methods, and twelve of the documents are based on literature/conceptual.
Whereas most studies had employers as respondents, a few studies included vulnerable groups themselves, service providers, and policy makers, covering a wide array of stakeholders relevant to employer engagement. Although most research focused on employers hiring people subjected to ALMP, some studies also looked at employers hiring other groups that could be considered vulnerable. Specific subgroups were also analysed in some studies, such as individuals with disabilities (including those with autism, multiple sclerosis, or mild traumatic brain injury), refugees, unemployed individuals with complex needs, clients of service providers, and veterans.
The majority of academic papers are published in journals focusing on social policy, HRM, or organisational behaviour. A smaller body of articles is published in rehabilitation journals. These findings reflect different disciplines that are connected in the concept of employer engagement. A complete overview of the main findings of the general characteristics of the articles can be found in Table 3.
Table 3. Summary of the general characteristics of the included documents
Employer engagement: two perspectives
Based on the included documents, two perspectives on employer engagement could be identified: involvement of the organisation as an entity and their internal stakeholders (e.g., stakeholders within the organisation such as line managers, top management, HR personal, and employees) in employing vulnerable people on the one hand, and on the other hand actions of external stakeholders (e.g., public employment services) that are (in)directly involved in influencing employers to employ vulnerable people (Ingold and Stuart, Reference Ingold and Stuart2014; Ingold and Stuart, Reference Ingold and Stuart2015). The largest body of literature (over forty documents) focuses on employer engagement as the involvement of employers and internal stakeholders, the rest of the literature focuses on external stakeholders activating employers (fifteen documents). A visual overview of the different perspectives and stakeholder groups of employer engagement is provided in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Conceptual framework of employer engagement. This figure presents the four key stakeholder groups involved in employer engagement: the organisation as an entity, HRM, line managers, and institutional stakeholders. The model distinguishes between internal and external actors, highlighting the layered and relational nature of employer involvement in inclusive labour market practices.
The body of literature focusing on employer engagement from the internal stakeholders perspective was categorised into three stakeholder groups: (1) the organisation as an entity, and within the organisation; (2) HRM; and (3) line managers. The literature on the organisation as an entity is more broadly about behaviours, motives, and attitudes concerning the active involvement of the organisation in ALMP. Additionally, within the organisational stakeholder group it was found that employer engagement can be structural or ad-hoc. The HRM stakeholder group is about behaviours, motives, and attitudes in the people management context facilitating the employment of vulnerable people. The line manager stakeholder group includes behaviours, motives, and attitudes showing the stakeholder engagement directly between the line manager and the individual employee.
The body of literature focusing on employer engagement from the perspective of external stakeholders solely focuses as service providers from public policy as external stakeholders, thus no underlying stakeholder groups were found. Therefore, this is referred to as the institutional stakeholder group. Several important behaviours, motives, and attitudes of this perspective were found (e.g., the balancing of labour market actors to meet all stakeholders’ needs). In the following sub-sections the four stakeholder groups of employer engagement are discussed further.
Employer engagement; internal stakeholders
In documents focusing on the internal stakeholders of employer engagement, the definition of employer engagement of Van Berkel et al. (Reference Van Berkel, Ingold, McGurk, Boselie and Bredgaard2017): ‘the active involvement of employers in addressing the societal challenge of promoting the labour market participation of vulnerable groups’ was often used as an overarching definition of employer engagement. Four of the included articles used solely this general definition of employer engagement other papers added more dimensions for clarity and depth (e.g., engagement with the employee or organisational policy) (Dall et al., Reference Dall, Larsen, Bo Madsen, Ingold and McGurk2023; Hamilton, Reference Hamilton, Ingold and McGurk2023; Ingold and McGurk, Reference Ingold, McGurk, Ingold and McGurk2023; McGurk and Ingold, Reference McGurk, Ingold, Ingold and McGurk2023). In these studies, a distinction was made between studies referring to employer engagement as the hiring of people from vulnerable groups (Hamilton, Reference Hamilton, Ingold and McGurk2023; Ingold and McGurk, Reference Ingold, McGurk, Ingold and McGurk2023; McGurk and Ingold, Reference McGurk, Ingold, Ingold and McGurk2023) and studies referring to it as actively addressing the societal challenge of the labour market participation of vulnerable people (Van Berkel et al., Reference Van Berkel, Ingold, McGurk, Boselie and Bredgaard2017; Dall et al., Reference Dall, Larsen, Bo Madsen, Ingold and McGurk2023). Most documents however use the definition of Van Berkel et al. (Reference Van Berkel, Ingold, McGurk, Boselie and Bredgaard2017) and specify this by taking different stakeholder perspective resulting in the distinct stakeholder groups discussed below.
Stakeholder group 1: the organisation as an entity
About half of the included documents, predominantly from social policy literature. This organisational stakeholder group focuses on the organisation as an entity and its active involvement in ALMP (see: Bellis et al., Reference Bellis, Sigala and Dewson2011; Ingold and Valizade, Reference Ingold and Valizade2015; McGurk, Reference McGurk2015; Ingold and Valizade, Reference Ingold and Valizade2017; Sissons and Green, Reference Sissons and Green2017; McGurk and Meredith, Reference McGurk and Meredith2018; Aksnes, Reference Aksnes2019; Orton and Green, Reference Orton and Green2019; Bezyak et al., Reference Bezyak, Moser, Iwanaga, Wu, Chen and Chan2020; Fernandez-Urbano and Orton, Reference Fernandez-Urbano and Orton2021; Hyggen and Vedeler, Reference Hyggen and Vedeler2021; Raspanti and Saruis, Reference Raspanti and Saruis2022; Bredgaard et al., Reference Bredgaard, Ingold, van Berkel, Ingold and McGurk2023; Butler and Payne, Reference Butler and Payne2025; Etherington and Jones, Reference Etherington, Jones, Ingold and McGurk2023; Gjersøe and Strand, Reference Gjersøe and Strand2023; Green and Sissons, Reference Green, Sissons, Ingold and McGurk2023; Ingold and McGurk, Reference Ingold, McGurk, Ingold and McGurk2023; McGurk and Ingold, Reference McGurk, Ingold, Ingold and McGurk2023; Valizade et al., Reference Valizade, Ingold and Stuart2023; Wiggan and Knuth, Reference Wiggan, Knuth, Ingold and McGurk2023; Levine et al., Reference Levine, Shapiro, Brown and Tenney2024; Østerud and Vedeler, Reference Østerud and Vedeler2024; Breit et al., Reference Breit, Bråthen and Sadeghi2025; Frøyland et al., Reference Frøyland, Breit and Spjelkavik2025). The documents provide varied reasons for employers to decide to engage in ALMP. An example is feelings of social responsibility, where employers consider employing vulnerable people as the ‘right thing to do’ (Bredgaard and Halkjær, Reference Bredgaard and Halkjær2016; Østerud, Reference Østerud2020; Ravn, Reference Ravn2024; Ravn, Reference Ravn2023). Other reasons discussed for (not) participating in ALMP were: conflicting demands where the employer finds parts of ALMP difficult to put into practice (Østerud, Reference Østerud2020); self-interest where employers are mostly looking into benefits for themselves (Ravn, Reference Ravn2023); wage incentives that motivate employers (Ravn, Reference Ravn2023); and welfare conditionality (Jones and Carson, Reference Jones and Carson2024).
Additionally, the role of attitudes towards ALMP in the participation of ALMP was discussed as part of employer engagement by several authors (Bredgaard, Reference Bredgaard2018; Østerud, Reference Østerud2020; Ravn, Reference Ravn2023). Attitudes towards ALMP was also discussed in the study of Ravn (Reference Ravn2023) and Østerud (Reference Østerud2020), both derived from the employer engagement typology of Bredgaard (Reference Bredgaard2018). However, Ravn (Reference Ravn2023) also discusses the attitude towards the employment of refugees. Yet, merely a positive attitude towards ALMP is not enough to participate in ALMP. Bredgaard (Reference Bredgaard2018) discusses that there is not a direct relationship between attitude and behaviour, which is also reflected in his typology of employers based on attitude towards job centres and participation in ALMP (Bredgaard, Reference Bredgaard2018). That solely a positive attitude is not enough to enable the employment of vulnerable people was also found by Ravn (Reference Ravn2023), who added that preconceptions about the vulnerable group are also important when it comes to attitudes towards ALMP, especially the ones about work motivation and work experience. Ravn (Reference Ravn2023) found that a positive attitude does not always result in hiring people in vulnerable positions, because of some of the aforementioned reasons to participate in ALMP, such as feelings of social responsibility, self-interest, or preconceptions of vulnerable people.
The continuity of employer engagement
Within the organisational stakeholder group some documents discussed the idea that employer engagement is not always continuous. When employer engagement is considered the participation in ALMP, a distinction can be made between employers that structurally engage in ALMP to employ vulnerable people, and employers that are more ad-hoc in their activities (Ingold et al., Reference Ingold, Sarkar, Valizade, Garcia and Scholz2017; Bredgaard, Reference Bredgaard2018; Ingold, Reference Ingold2019; Ravn, Reference Ravn2023). The first group of employers is referred to as ‘relationally engaged employers’ and the second group as ‘instrumentally engaged employers’ (Ingold et al., Reference Ingold, Sarkar, Valizade, Garcia and Scholz2017). The research of Ingold et al. (Reference Ingold, Sarkar, Valizade, Garcia and Scholz2017) showed that organisations that are relationally engaged differ from instrumentally engaged organisations in several ways. Relationally engaged employers organise recruitment through ALMP, aim to increase the opportunities for disadvantaged groups, use service providers for matchmaking, and focus on inter-personal relations (Ingold et al., Reference Ingold, Sarkar, Valizade, Garcia and Scholz2017). Contrasting, instrumentally engaged employers use service providers for information and focus more on inter-organisational relations (Ingold et al., Reference Ingold, Sarkar, Valizade, Garcia and Scholz2017).
Stakeholder group 2: HRM
In predominantly HRM and organisational studies related literature and journals, employer engagement was focused on inclusive activities and policies from HRM. Nineteen of the articles discussed the HR stakeholder group of employer engagement (see for example: Nicholas et al., Reference Nicholas, Hodgetts, Zwaigenbaum, Smith, Shattuck, Parr, Conlon, Germani, Mitchell, Sacrey and Stothers2017; Frøyland et al., Reference Frøyland, Andreassen and Innvær2019; Ortlieb and Weiss, Reference Ortlieb and Weiss2020; Østerud, Reference Østerud2020; Enehaug et al., Reference Enehaug, Spjelkavik, Falkum and Frøyland2021; Dall et al., Reference Dall, Larsen, Bo Madsen, Ingold and McGurk2023; Hamilton, Reference Hamilton, Ingold and McGurk2023; Liu, Reference Liu2023; Breit et al., Reference Breit, Bråthen and Sadeghi2025; Frøyland et al., Reference Frøyland, Breit and Spjelkavik2025). These articles focused on HR activities and practices, attitudes, and motives that enable the employment of vulnerable people (Leahy et al., Reference Leahy, Chan, Iwanaga, Umucu, Sung, Bishop and Strauser2019; Bezyak et al., Reference Bezyak, Moser, Iwanaga, Wu, Chen and Chan2020; Jones et al., Reference Jones, Scullion, Hynes and Martin2025), or inclusive policies within the organisation (Murfitt and Gaskin, Reference Murfitt and Gaskin2022). Examples provided in the documents were inclusive recruitment and selection practices (Nicholas et al., Reference Nicholas, Mitchell, Zulla and Dudley2019; Van Berkel, Reference Van Berkel2021; Liu, Reference Liu2023; Hamilton, Reference Hamilton, Ingold and McGurk2023; Østerud and Vedeler, Reference Østerud and Vedeler2024) and training and education policies (Van Berkel et al., Reference Van Berkel, Ingold, McGurk, Boselie and Bredgaard2017; McGurk and Meredith, Reference McGurk and Meredith2018).
Various organisational actors were mentioned in the documents as being important for successful employer engagement on a HRM level; HR personnel, top management, line management, supervisors, and other co-workers (Van Berkel, Reference Van Berkel2021; Dall et al., Reference Dall, Larsen, Bo Madsen, Ingold and McGurk2023). The different organisational actors have diverse attitudes, levels of confidence, and awareness about the employment of vulnerable people, which were considered important indicators of employer engagement on the HRM level (Østerud, Reference Østerud2020; Murfitt and Gaskin, Reference Murfitt and Gaskin2022). It was stated in the documents that employer engagement is more than stating that you are a socially responsible employer (Van Berkel et al., Reference Van Berkel, Ingold, McGurk, Boselie and Bredgaard2017; Dall et al., Reference Dall, Larsen, Bo Madsen, Ingold and McGurk2023) and that it consists of a wide array of HRM practices and policies that can be endorsed on different levels within the organisation.
Stakeholder group 3: the line manager
In seven of the included documents (Mcdonnall et al., Reference McDonnall, Cmar and Tatch2020; Spjelkavik et al., Reference Spjelkavik, Enehaug, Klethagen, Howe, Fure, Terjesen, Løvstad and Andelic2023; Alves et al., Reference Alves, Ballo, Nilsen, Lundberg, Lillebråten and Bernstrøm2023; De Dios Pérez et al., Reference De Dios Pérez, Das Nair and Radford2024-a; De Dios Pérez et al., Reference De Dios Pérez, das Nair and Radford2024-b; Aksnes and Breit, Reference Aksnes and Breit2025; Breit et al., Reference Breit, Bråthen and Sadeghi2025; Frøyland et al., Reference Frøyland, Breit and Spjelkavik2025), employer engagement is conceptualised as (line) managers being closely connected to either the rehabilitation process or the (re-)integration process of vulnerable employees, also sometimes referred to as a micro-perspective on employer engagement (Aksnes and Breit, Reference Aksnes and Breit2025). These documents originate from rehabilitation literature and predominantly rehabilitation journals. De Dios Pérez et al. (Reference De Dios Pérez, Das Nair and Radford2024-a) emphasise the need for engagement of employers to improve vocational rehabilitation, as this can enhance the knowledge of employers on the rehabilitation process and improve workplace relations. This knowledge is beneficial for employees as well, as the employer better understands the needs during the rehabilitation (De Dios Pérez et al., Reference De Dios Pérez, Das Nair and Radford2024-a) and can provide the right support and accommodations which can positively influence the return to work of employees (Spjelkavik et al., Reference Spjelkavik, Enehaug, Klethagen, Howe, Fure, Terjesen, Løvstad and Andelic2023). A high degree of employer engagement from line managers, such as vocational rehabilitation, is often observed in organisations with greater workplace inclusion, where employers typically demonstrate positive attitudes and empathy towards their employees (Spjelkavik et al., Reference Spjelkavik, Enehaug, Klethagen, Howe, Fure, Terjesen, Løvstad and Andelic2023).
Employer engagement: external stakeholders
Stakeholder group 4: the institutional stakeholders
Within social policy literature an external stakeholder perspective on employer engagement can be identified. The distinction between these the internal versus external stakeholders was first described as the two faces of employer engagement by Ingold and Stuart (Reference Ingold and Stuart2014). The external stakeholder perspective is labour market actors (in)directly involved in activation of employers to employ vulnerable groups. This includes actions that are part of ALMP (e.g., direct contact between implementing agencies and employers) and interactions with service providers to increase employer involvement in the employment of vulnerable people. Fifteen documents included this external stakeholder perspective on employer engagement (see for example: Ingold and Stuart, Reference Ingold and Stuart2014; Ingold and Valizade, Reference Ingold and Valizade2015; Van Berkel et al., Reference Van Berkel, Ingold, McGurk, Boselie and Bredgaard2017; Orton et al., Reference Orton, Green, Atfield and Barnes2019; Tamburo et al., Reference Tamburo, Switzer and Gower2019; Aksnes, Reference Aksnes2019; Ingold et al., Reference Ingold, Knox, Macaulay and Senewiratne2023; Ingold and McGurk, Reference Ingold, McGurk, Ingold and McGurk2023). The external stakeholders in the documents were limited to institutional stakeholders. This form of employer engagement focuses for instance on interactions between labour market intermediaries (e.g., public employment services) and employers (Van Kooy et al., Reference Van Kooy, Bowman and Bodsworth2014). More broadly, it is about the support provided by social policies and social services for employers in the employment of vulnerable people (Boselie et al., Reference Boselie, van Berkel, van Harten, van Os and Haenraets2021). An example of activities targeting employers described in the documents was service providers and job agents that intervene in the recruitment process by filling vacancies (Ingold and Stuart, Reference Ingold and Stuart2015). Even though this might seem a simple intervention, these service providers need to balance rights, needs, as well as the interests of the employer and job seeker (Raspanti and Saruis, Reference Raspanti and Saruis2022). For a successful transition towards the labour market a dynamic relationship is needed between the employer and the public employment services (Van Gestel et al., Reference Van Gestel, Oomens and Buwalda2019), in which service providers can fulfil a brokerage role (Ingold, Reference Ingold2018; Johnson et al., Reference Johnson, Martínez Lucio, Grimshaw and Watt2023). Although this dynamic and active role is also needed from employers, they often expect service providers to take more responsibility to avoid (financial) risks for themselves (Van Gestel et al., Reference Van Gestel, Oomens and Buwalda2019).
Discussion
This review aimed to address the lack of conceptual clarity of employer engagement, as discussed by Van Berkel et al. (Reference Van Berkel, Ingold, McGurk, Boselie and Bredgaard2017) and Ingold and McGurk (Reference Ingold, McGurk, Ingold and McGurk2023). This was done by providing an extensive overview of the separate ways in which current research conceptualised employer engagement in the context of employing vulnerable people. In the following sections a consolidated conceptualisation of employer engagement is provided by integrating the findings and relating this to stakeholder theory. After that the implications, limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.
A consolidated conceptualisation of employer engagement
Two main perspectives on employer engagement could be distinguished based on the findings, as also previously discussed by Ingold and Stuart (Reference Ingold and Stuart2014), an internal and external stakeholder perspective. The definition of Van Berkel et al. (Reference Van Berkel, Ingold, McGurk, Boselie and Bredgaard2017): ‘the active involvement of employers in addressing the societal challenge of promoting the labour market participation of vulnerable groups’ reflects the internal stakeholders of employer engagement. However, this review showed that the ‘active involvement’ in this definition is being researched related to three distinct stakeholder groups. The first stakeholder group is the organisation as an entity. This research reflects mostly social policy literature, which includes studies about reasons for participating in ALMP (e.g., welfare conditionality) (e.g., Jones and Carson, Reference Jones and Carson2024). Within the institutional stakeholder group, the findings show that employers can either be relationally (structurally) engaged or instrumentally (ad-hoc) engaged (Ingold et al., Reference Ingold, Sarkar, Valizade, Garcia and Scholz2017). Second, HRM as an internal stakeholder group includes studies focusing on for example inclusive recruitment policies (e.g., Van Berkel, Reference Van Berkel2021). Third, the line manager as an internal stakeholder group included studies focus on for example employers providing support for rehabilitation and good accommodations for employees (e.g., De Dios Pérez et al., Reference De Dios Pérez, Das Nair and Radford2024-a). The first perspective and the three stakeholders with their originating disciplines are all covered by the broad definition of Van Berkel et al. (Reference Van Berkel, Ingold, McGurk, Boselie and Bredgaard2017).
Van Berkel et al.’s (Reference Van Berkel, Ingold, McGurk, Boselie and Bredgaard2017) definition emphasises active involvement, which this review associates with various motives, behaviours, practices, and attitudes. Beyond the analysed literature explicitly addressing employer engagement, several demand-side review studies offer additional insights in what this involvement could be. Scoping reviews on the employer perspective examined successful organisational policies for the inclusion of vulnerable workers (Kersten et al., Reference Kersten, Van Woerkom, Geuskens and Blonk2023) and inclusive organisational practices for people with a disability (Van Berkel and Breit, Reference Van Berkel and Breit2024). Another systematic review studied the hindering and facilitating factors for hiring people with a disability (Nagtegaal et al., Reference Nagtegaal, De Boer, Van Berkel, Derks and Tummers2023), which provided an overview of employer practices, and their struggles and successes regarding hiring people with a disability, which provides additional insights in motives, behaviours, and perspectives across the three stakeholder groups.
The second perspective on employer engagement that was identified focuses on external stakeholders trying to engage employers. This makes up the fourth and last stakeholder group of employer engagement, the institutional stakeholder group. An example of external stakeholders for the employment of vulnerable workers includes service providers supporting employers in recruitment processes (Ingold and Stuart, Reference Ingold and Stuart2015). It was found that the intermediary professionals in their interactions aim to engage employers have the pressure of balancing rights and needs, as well as the interests of the employer and job seeker (Raspanti and Saruis, Reference Raspanti and Saruis2022). For this perspective, no multidimensionality as in the first perspective on employer engagement was found, since all literature is based on service providers in the discipline of social policy. In the future a distinction can be made in the type of external stakeholders that mobilises employers and their actions. External stakeholders in employer engagement go beyond nationwide ALMP and service providers. An example is the role of trade unions and employers’ associations. Also, social partners can address and influence corporate social responsibility and inclusion through collective labour agreements (Biedma-Ferrer et al., Reference Biedma-Ferrer, López-Fernández and Romero-Fernandez2017), which can thus influence the employment of vulnerable people. Additionally, there are agreements of the United Nations that discuss the rights of having accommodation needs met from for example people with a disability (UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2022). So, although no external stakeholder groups besides institutional stakeholders could be distinguished yet, there are likely several distinct stakeholders with differing roles and motives that could further conceptualise the external perspective on employer engagement. Further research on external stakeholders and employer engagement is therefore needed.
Employer engagement and stakeholder theory
Stakeholder theory can enhance the understanding of the complexity of the conceptualisation of employer engagement. Organisations operate within a network of internal and external stakeholders, each with their own interests (Freeman, Reference Freeman1984; Pedersen, Reference Pedersen2006). This review showed that employer engagement is not just a behaviour, but rather embedded in a broader web of stakeholder interactions. Within the organisation as an entity we found several internal stakeholder groups related to employer engagement. Line managers play a crucial role in supporting the individual needs of (potential) employees. For the HRM stakeholder group the literature shows that employer engagement is shaped through interactions with other internal actors such as top management, supervisors, and co-workers (Van Berkel, Reference Van Berkel2021; Dall et al., Reference Dall, Larsen, Bo Madsen, Ingold and McGurk2023).
Outside the organisation multiple relevant stakeholders were identified. Current employer engagement literature is mainly focused on institutional stakeholders such as municipalities, implementing agencies, and policy makers. They aim to influence employer behaviour through regulation, incentives, and normative expectations related to corporate social responsibility (Østerud, Reference Østerud2020). Intermediary actors like public employment services and job coaches actively seek to mobilise employers by information provision and tailored support (Ingold and Stuart, Reference Ingold and Stuart2015). These stakeholders often navigate competing expectations, balancing the rights and needs of other relevant stakeholders (e.g., employers and jobseekers) (Raspanti and Saruis, Reference Raspanti and Saruis2022). This role again highlights that employer engagement is a complex phenomenon formed by internal stakeholders but also external influences and relationships. For example, public agencies may influence employer behaviour through formal authority such as quotas or compliance requirements, reflecting coercive stakeholder pressure (Jones and Carson, Reference Jones and Carson2024). In contrast, normative influence from social partners or sectoral bodies operates more subtly, shaping expectations and behaviours through shared norms and values (Biedma-Ferrer et al., Reference Biedma-Ferrer, López-Fernández and Romero-Fernandez2017). This variation in stakeholder power and legitimacy helps explain the diversity in definitions and practices of employer engagement found in the literature (Mitchell et al., Reference Mitchell, Agle and Wood1997).
This consolidated conceptualisation highlights that employer engagement is a multi-actor phenomenon, applying stakeholder theory shows that the meanings of employer engagement are co-produces through interactions among stakeholders. Stakeholder theory further explains the conceptual ambiguity in the field, because what counts as employer engagement varies depending on the perspective of the stakeholder and the context within which the engagement occurs.
Limitations
The systematic approach used in a scoping review reduces potential limitations and ensures an unbiased review (e.g., by scoping the literature and databases and including a reference- and citation check). However, this article still has some limitations to consider. The conceptual ambiguity of employer engagement resulted in some documents being unclear about their conceptualisation of employer engagement (e.g., when the general definition of employer engagement is used but no elaboration of what involvement entailed was provided). Therefore, documents where no definition was given were excluded. In documents where the definition was more implicit, narrow interpretations were made based on the context of the documents. An example of a narrow interpretation is that in some studies employer engagement was defined as engagement with ALMP, which was interpreted as participating in ALMP and not for example attitudes towards ALMP. Although there were efforts to mitigate this bias (e.g., unclear conceptualisations were not included in the dataset), the subjective nature of the narrow interpretations remains a limitation to consider.
An additional limitation is the risk of missing potentially relevant studies due to possible missed terms in the search string. As employer engagement is a broad term used to describe a complex phenomenon there is the possibility that relevant search terms were not included in the search string. Developing a good search string was balancing between covering the broadness of the term while not redirecting the search string towards a pre-determined definition of employer engagement. The researchers tried to mitigate this by using reference and citation tracking, additionally the researchers tried to mitigate this by consulting with a search specialist from the university library of the authors their university. However, the possibility remains that relevant articles were missed.
Contributions
This scoping review contributes to the scientific literature in several ways. Firstly, this paper and its results clarify the concept of employer engagement as the research is fragmented across different disciplines. With this article a comprehensive overview was given of not only the concept but also the research areas related to employer engagement. Secondly, by elaborating on the distinct levels of employer engagement applying stakeholder theory, this study opens new pathways for future research. Finally, a key contribution of this research lies in its effort to bridge the definitions used by different disciplines. By synthesising insights from disciplines traditionally treated in isolation (e.g., social policy, work and HRM, and rehabilitation), this paper offers a more holistic perspective on employer engagement. It not only emphasised the multifaceted nature of the concept but also exposes the limitations of relying solely on a single disciplinary framework to grasp its complexity.
On a societal level these findings show that employer engagement is a complex concept differing based on stakeholder perceptions. Based on stakeholder theory these findings indicate that there might also be opportunities to stimulate employers through different external stakeholders since different stakeholders have different power, legitimacy, and urgency (Mitchell et al., Reference Mitchell, Agle and Wood1997). Now research has only been done on service providers and public initiatives through ALMP. This opens a wide area of opportunities for organisations to mobilise towards a more inclusive labour market where we also bring the labour market closer to people in more vulnerable positions.
Future research
Based on our findings several future research directions can be suggested. Our study showed that there has been limited research on some of the stakeholder groups of employer engagement, especially the line manager stakeholder group is less frequently taken into account. Yet, studying all the stakeholders of employer engagement – preferably simultaneously – could provide relevant insights, for instance about how the stakeholders connect to each other and to what extent they are dependent on each other. More specifically, a relevant interdisciplinary research question could focus on the extent to which high employer engagement from different stakeholder groups simultaneously is indeed related to more employment of people with a vulnerable position on the labour market.
Another research direction is to further investigate relational versus instrumental engagement on the for the different stakeholder groups of employer engagement. Our analysis showed that research on continuity of engagement is done on the organisational stakeholder group, yet it would be valuable to investigate what this looks like on distinct stakeholder groups as well, as the continuity of engagement might differ with different stakeholders of the organisation.
Moreover, an interesting direction for research based on this study, is the influence of ALMP and service providers on the different stakeholder groups of employer engagement. The analysis showed that a small proportion of the included studies investigated this role, and if so, only for the organisational stakeholder group. It would be insightful to also study the role of ALMP and service providers on the line manager and HRM as stakeholders of employer engagement. For instance, by looking at how ALMP can increase employer involvement for HRM by stimulating inclusive policies, or even on an line manager level by stimulating line managers in providing good accommodations.
These suggested areas for future research offer opportunities to further deepen our understanding of employer engagement. As the field continues to evolve, further investigation into these directions will not only enhance theoretical frameworks but also offer practical benefits to facilitate the employment of vulnerable people.
Conclusion
In this study a consolidated conceptualisation of employer engagement is developed, providing new insights into how employer engagement can be perceived and conceptualised. The four stakeholder groups found suggest that employer engagement is a multidimensional and relational concept with internal and external stakeholders, which has important implications when trying to study and facilitate the employment of vulnerable people. While our research addressed several key questions, it also highlighted areas where further investigation is needed, particularly when looking at further diving into the interdisciplinarity of employer engagement. Overall, these findings contribute to a growing body of knowledge on employer engagement. As the understanding of employer engagement evolves, continued research will be essential to advance ALMP as well as inclusive HRM for an inclusive labour market.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the several authors that provided additional grey literature as well as the researchers that provided valuable feedback on a previous version of this paper during the 13th Biennial International Conference of the Dutch HRM Network in Rotterdam.
Author Contributions: CRediT Taxonomy
Renate Bosman: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.
Hanneke van Heijster: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing - review & editing.
Irmgard Borghouts: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing - review & editing.
Charissa Freese: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing - review & editing.
Competing Interests
The author(s) declare none.
Funding statement
This project is funded by institute Gak, project: 2020-166.
Appendix – Search string
(“employer* engagement” OR “employer* involvement” OR “employer* commitment”) AND (“ALMP” OR “Social security” OR “Social polic*” OR “governmental polic*” OR “active labo*r market polic*” OR “labo*r market integration” OR “labo*r market participation” OR “labo*r market polic*” OR “vulnerable groups” OR “vulnerable populations” OR “vulnerable people” OR “vulnerable workers” OR “vulnerable employees” OR “vulnerable individuals” OR “marginalized groups” OR “marginalized populations” OR “marginalized people” OR “marginalized workers” OR “marginalized employees” OR “marginalized individuals” OR “minorities” OR “disadvantaged groups” OR “disadvantaged populations” OR “disadvantaged people” OR “disadvantaged workers” OR “disadvantaged employees” OR “disadvantaged individuals” OR “disab*” OR “impair*” OR “special needs” OR “support needs” OR “Low*educated” OR “refuge*” OR “ex-convicted workers” OR “ex-convicted employees” OR “Human resource management” OR “human resource strateg*” OR “HRM”OR “HR” OR “organization*” OR “organisation*” OR “rehabilitat*”)
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