RESPONSABILIDAD DE LOS NOTARIOS Y SANCIONES.

• Empowering leadership behaviour • High-performance work practices • Religiosity

This section of the thesis elaborates first on the instruments for the four major scales that were incorporated in this study, followed by the control variables, the issue of language, and the pre-test and pilot study.

4.8.6 Measurement scales

Employee engagement scales

As indicated earlier, there are three significant elements of employee engagement: vigour, dedication and absorption. For this study, engagement was measured on the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) developed by Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma and Bakker (2002) and consisting of three subscales: vigour, dedication and absorption. Previous psychometric studies have verified that the job engagement scale has reasonable construct validity and that the construct is distinct from burnout (Schaufeli et al. 2002; Seppala et al. 2009) and job involvement (Hallberg & Schaufeli 2006). Other studies have established the (cross-national) validity, reliability and stability of the construct (Schaufeli & Bakker 2004). Vigour was assessed by six items (e.g., ‘At my work, I feel as if I am bursting with energy’). Dedication was measured by five items (e.g., ‘I find the work that I do to be full of meaning and purpose’). The assessment of absorption included six items (e.g., ‘When I am working, I forget everything else that is around me’). These items were rated on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from (0) ‘Never’ to (7) ‘Always’.

Empowering leadership practices

Leadership was measured by using the ELQ (Empowerment Leadership Questionnaire) developed by Arnold et al. (2000). The measure includes five scales: participative decision making, showing concern/interacting with the team, leading by example, informing and coaching. Participative decision making was assessed by five items (e.g., ‘Encourages work group members to express ideas or suggestions’). Showing concern used five items (e.g., ‘Shows concern for work group members’

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well-being’). Leading by example used five items (e.g., ‘Sets high standards for performance by his or her own behaviour’). Informing used five items (e.g., ‘Explains company decisions’). Coaching used five items (e.g., ‘Teaches work group members how to solve problems on their own’). Items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale from (0) ‘Completely Disagree’ to (7) ‘Completely Agree’.

HPWP scales

In selecting which HR practices to include in an HPWP ‘bundle’, the approach adopted by most researchers has been to derive the practices from prior research (Becker & Huselid 1998). The present study does not depart from this strategy, although there is disagreement among researchers as to which practices should make up such systems (Becker & Gerhart 1996; Delery 1998). Because the lists of the practices that ought to be included in a HPWS bundle overlap to some extent (Ramsay et al. 2000), the approach used here is a normative one, only including HR practices commonly referred to in the literature. The study looked at various aspects of HPWP and adopted a common strategy that combined either single or multi-item measures of individual HR practices in a unitary measure representing HPWP (Delery & Shaw 2001). Consequently, several measures were used in the study. This study adopted items from Snell and Dean (1992) that measure comprehensive training, developmental performance appraisal, reward systems and selective staffing variables. Comprehensive training was assessed by six items (e.g., ‘How extensive is the training process for members of your work unit?’). Developmental performance appraisal used four items (e.g., ‘How much effort is given to measuring employee performance?’). Reward systems used three items (e.g., ‘The wages in this work unit are not very competitive for this industry’). Selective staffing consisted of three items (e.g., ‘How extensive is the employee selection process for a job in this unit?’). Items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale from (0) ‘Completely Disagree’ to (7) ‘Completely Agree’.

The study also included items that measured employee job security policy and participation in employee participation programs (Macky & Boxall 2007). Employee job security policy was assessed by one item (i.e., ‘My employer has a formal policy of avoiding compulsory redundancies.’). Participation in some form of employee

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participation program used one item (i.e., ‘Employees here have the opportunity to be involved in the decision making on things that matter; for example, through quality circles, business process project teams, or total quality management.’). One question (‘Do you have access to a formal grievance procedure or complaint resolution system?’) was developed for formal grievance or complaint resolution systems.

Religiosity scales

This study adopted the Muslem Attitudes towards Religiosity Scale (MARS) developed by Wilde and Joseph (1997). The scales were later modified by Rusnah (2005) and expanded by Khairul (2010) to 21 items. Samples of the items are ‘Do you consider yourself religious?’, ‘I read the Quran for inspiration and motivation’, ‘Saying my prayers helps me a lot’ and ‘Islam helps me lead a better life’. One additional item was included ‘The fact that I am a Muslim is an important part of my identity’. Items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale from (0) ‘Completely Disagree’ to (7) ‘Completely Agree’.

Control variables

Certain variables may be associated with the variables under study and may distort the results of the research since one could be the underlying agent that is actually causing a change in the response variable (Kraemer 1987). One of the ways to deal with the problem while seeking to establish causal relationships is to control for suspected variables (i.e., control for confounding variables) (Sweet and Grace-Martin 2012). A confounding variable influences, at least to a certain degree, the pattern of the initial association of the studied variables (Rosenthal 1991). For example, it could affect the size or the presence or absence of that association. Thus, for this research, information on demographic background was collected and the effects of seven variables – gender, age, ethnicity, educational qualification, job position, tenure and annual income – were controlled.

Language

For this study, the questionnaires were provided in English as in the original scale. English is the second national language in Malaysia and is used in the education system. People who are generally educated, as in the sample of this study, were willing

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to answer in English and understood the language clearly, as was indicated in the pilot study. Further, since there are no established and reliable questionnaires in the Malay language, using the established English language items is more appropriate and reliable. Harzing and Maznevski (2002) indicated that an accurate translation of a survey is fraught with problems, and perhaps is impossible. Thus, translating the questionnaire may cause problems in regard to the validity and reliability of the items.

Pre-test

A pre-test was conducted during the first week of January 2011 involving discussions with five employees from the financial sector and four fellow academics who were well versed in quantitative surveys in the Malaysian setting. The objective of the pretest was to assess the validity, the scales and the measures. The questions were distributed via e-mail. The academics and employees reviewed the questions and gave feedback on the content, language, readibility and relevance of the questions. Participants were able to understand the items in the English language and claimed that there was no need to include the items in the Malay language. Participants were also asked to identify items which they thought had no significant relation to the variables and to suggest other items which they thought should be included. The participants made two distinct suggestions in regard to the HPWP items. First, the developmental performance appraisal item ‘The performance targets in my work unit are mostly fixed’ was deleted. Most respondents misunderstood this item and treated it as a positive-coded item. The item was intended to imply that if a performance target were fixed, there would not be much flexibility in deciding how far an employee could go in performing at work. Thus, this would be a hindrance to HPWP. However, most of the respondents did not understand the statement in this way and felt that the item referred to the way that performance targets were always discussed and fixed before a project was carried out. The second change was that the reward item ‘The training process is formal and/or structured’ was also deleted. This was a reverse-coded item which was intended to imply that if a training process is formal and structured, it would be a hindrance to HPWP. The respondents misunderstood the question and viewed it as a positive item, that the training process was organised and coordinated appropriately – which is quite different from the intended meaning. Thus, this item was also deleted. HPWP was left with 18 items.

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Pilot study

A pilot study was conducted in mid-January 2011 involving 23 employees from the financial sector. In accordance with Churchill’s (1979) recommendation, refinement of the scale requires the computing of reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alphas). The Cronbach’s alpha for all questions under each criterion must be above 0.70, indicating that the questions deal with the same underlying construct (Spector 1992). The Cronbach’s alphas were computed for each of the variables as well as the dimensions in the variables to ascertain the extent to which the items making up each dimension and the variables had a common aspect. The reliability analysis ranged from 0.690 to 0.893. The dimensions were retained as they presented adequate reliabilities (Nunnaly & Berstein 1994). The final instrument consisted of 82 items (see Appendix G).

Table 4.5: Reliability of scales for pilot study

Scales Cronbach’s Alpha (α)

Employee engagement 0.893

Empowering leadership behaviour 0.836

High performance work systems 0.690

Religiosity 0.870