Meaningful group culture: development of a multidimensional measure using multilevel assessment

Abstract

PurposeThere is a growing array of literature that supports various implications of positive organizational psychology on workplace outcomes such as the positive work cultures. However, lack of appropriate measuring instruments is halting the progress in this field. Laid down in this article are the conceptual and empirical perspective regarding a positive group culture, i.e. meaningful group culture (MGC) and elaboration of what MGC is and how to measure it. For this study, the MGC is defined as a culture of humane orientation and explained through five dimensions: ideology infused, caring for employees, pro diversity, helping and employee-centric organization identification. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.Design/methodology/approachTo further elucidate, development and validation of the MGC instrument was carried out in three phases. In the very first phase, content and face validity was assessed by experts. Following it, the second phase construct validity was undertaken through exploratory factor analysis of the results from the use of the instrument on a sample of 540 professionals. To end with, in the third phase, multilevel confirmatory analysis was conducted on an organizational sample of 397 individuals and 106 groups.FindingsThe results of the Multilevel Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MCFA) provided further evidence of confirmation that the extraction of five factors was appropriate, and reliability analysis showed the MGC to be both valid and reliable. Consequently, the applications of the tool to Human Resource Development (HRD) professionals are suggested.Research limitations/implicationsTo broaden the coverage and enhance generalizability, the study focused on multi-sector convenient based sample.Practical implicationsHRD professionals can use it as a diagnostic tool for deeper exploration into systematic and organizational issues. The use of it can provide a window for addressing the developmental needs within the organizations.Originality/valueThis study is possibly one of the first to develop a psychometrically valid scale to measure higher order measure of a work group culture through multilevel assessment of the model.