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March 2007:An Examination of Proxy Measures of Workplace Spirituality: A Profile Model of Multidimensional Constructs
An Examination of Proxy Measures of Workplace Spirituality: A Profile Model of Multidimensional Constructs
March 30, 2007
"McCormick (1994) defines spirituality as an inner experience an individual has that can be evidenced by his or her behavior. Individual spirituality is considered an internal substance that affects people's behavior. Although there are different levels of spirituality, each of the measures used in this research focus on individual employee spirituality. Three measures with established validity were chosen as proxy measures for the components of spirituality; perceived organizational support, affective organizational commitment, and intrinsic job satisfaction.
High levels of perceived organizational support demands the recognition of an employee's inner life by organizations (Ashmos and Duchon, 2000). Since most of today's organizations seek greater levels of commitment, production and efficiency, from employees, they must begin to care for the whole person (Bell and Taylor, 2001).
One of the more agreed upon dimensions of workplace spirituality is the notion of interconnectedness. Interconnectedness can simply be defined as the feeling of being part of something bigger than the self. The final dimension of workplace spirituality in this writing is self-actualization, which borrowed from Abraham Maslow's (1943) work on human motivation. The common theme in using Maslow's term of self-actualization is that it usually entails both the mental and spiritual aspects of the individual and work as a component.
Three conceptual dimensions of workplace spirituality have been discussed in this paper. The first dimension is self-work immersion, which is defined as the extent to which employees are supported by the organization in bringing their spiritual selves to work, or perceived organizational support. The second dimension is the extent to which employees experience interconnectedness, measured as affective organizational commitment. Finally, the extent in which employees self-actualize or experience spiritual and mental growth through work is measured as intrinsic job satisfaction.
The sample is from an unused portion of a much larger data set. Respondents were recruited through various employers and employment agencies to complete an online survey, which consisted of a multitude of measures. Total population was 1076. Original responses were pruned down to 228 relevant responses resulting n a 21.2% response rate. This reduction is due to erroneous data input, missing data, and corrupted data fields. Respondents consisted of management and professional level employees in 14 different industries, in the southwest region of the United States. Males comprised 54% of the sample with an average age of 33.76 years, while females comprised 46% of the sample with an average age of 33.12 years.
A reliability analysis was conducted for each of the three factor variables. Self-work immersion was measured using three items from Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, and Sowa's (1986) scale of POS. Responses were measured using a five-point Likert scale. Interconnectedness was measured using a Likert scale from six items created by Meyer, Allen, and Smith's (1993) scale of AOC. Finally, the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (Weiss, Davis, England, and Lofquist, 1967) was used to measure self-actualization.
The purpose of this paper is to develop measures of spirituality from existing valid measures from the organizational behavior literature. We examine how three theoretical components of spirituality, perceived organizational support, affective organizational commitment, and intrinsic job satisfaction, theoretically mesh with the components of workplace spirituality.
Although this research augments the body of empirical workplace spirituality literature, there are some associated limitations. For instance, a major limitation may be the operationalized variables to measure the theoretical dimensions of workplace spirituality. Another limitation of this research is the possibility of correlated mediating variables. The cross-sectional design and single source data are additional limitations of this research (Moore, & Casper, 2006, p. 109-118)."
Reference: Moore, T.W.; & Casper, W.J. (2006). An Examination of Proxy Measures of Workplace Spirituality: A Profile Model of Multidimensional Constructs. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4.
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Created: 2007-04-18, Updated: 2008-12-29
