Best practice recommendations for scale construction in organizational research: The development and initial validation of the Character Strength Inventory (CSI)

Abstract

Summary Proper scale development and validation provide the necessary foundation to facilitate future quantitative research in the organizational sciences. Using the framework provided by the Researcher's Notebook, the purpose of this study is twofold. First, we present a modern summary of best practice procedures for scale development, reliability analysis, and validity analysis. Second, we explain and illustrate these best practice procedures by describing each procedure in the context of developing and psychometrically analyzing a new Character Strength Inventory (CSI). Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Our Quest for a Great Place to Work: Meaning in and at Work through the Fit Perspective

“…Hence, negatively worded items were not used in the Main Survey. This is consistent with more recent observations on scale construction (please see Wright et al, 2017). All the surveys (the two Pilot Surveys, the three-wave Main Survey, and the Scenario Analysis, described below) were hosted on FluidSurveys, the official survey support providers to our university.…”

“…It was again noted that the negatively worded items showed lower factor loadings and it was decided to drop the negatively worded (or reverse coded) items from the Main Survey. This is consistent with the recent observations by Wright et al (2017). Based on the measurement results of Pilot Survey 2, nine rounds of reviews were conducted (please see Appendix 11) to improve the scale item loadings especially those with factor loadings of less than 0.70 and item correlations of less than 0.50.…”

“…Moreover, the existing scales for the other four main variables (meaning in work, person-work fit, person-supervisor fit, and person-organization fit) needed some refinement, discussed in the Measurement section. The procedure followed to develop and refine the scales were guided by the recommendations of Wright et al (2017) with respect to best practices for scale construction. I drafted a set of scale items based on the definitions of the seven main variables, the five top themes that emerged for each of the seven main variables out of Study 1, and the scale items of the same/similar variables in the existing literature.…”

“…As discussed in Chapter 4 on Research Design and Chapter 5 on Study 1, and the preceding sections on Pilot Surveys 1 and 2, the scales to measure the seven main variables in the proposed meaning-through-fit model of great places to work were developed/refined rigorously in the spirit of the recommendations made by Wright et al (2017). This mechanism of building up the scales for the seven main variables is given in Appendices 4 to 10.…”

“…A major contribution of the dissertation is developing three strong scales (employees' perception of a great place to work, meaning at work, and person-group fit) and refining four scales (meaning in work, person-work fit, person-supervisor fit and person-organization fit). As discussed in Chapter 4 on Research Design, in Chapter 5 on Study 1, and in Chapter 6 on Study 2, the scales to measure were developed rigorously, in the spirit of the recommendations made by Wright et al (2017). The mechanism of building up the scales for the seven variables is given in Appendices 4 to 10.…”