A Review of National Responsibility of Government Organizations’ Staff: Designing and Validation of a Research Scale

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Faculty of Management and Accountancy, Tarbiat Modarres University

2 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Management and Accountancy, Tarbiat Modarres University

3 Faculty of Management and Accountancy, Tarbiat Modarres University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The main objective of the present research is to review the concept of 'national responsibility' and design and validate a scale for its measurement. Combined exploratory research method was used for the purpose of this research. In the first place, the concept of national responsibility was reviewed through interview with 34 government employees. At this stage, grounded theory method was used. The results of the interview were classified on the basis of certain themes and the main and secondary themes and primary and secondary codes were extracted. In the light of the obtained results, national responsibility became operational with three dimensions: individual responsibility (responsibility towards self and family); organizational responsibility; and social responsibility. Formal and content validity was assessed with the help of 17 experts. The construct validity was assessed by studying the relationship between national responsibility and organizational indifference and organizational citizenship behavior for both of which standard questionnaires are available. The validity of the construct was studied by  first and second order confirmatory factor analysis. The final questionnaire was distributed among 10 government organizations and the final garnered information was used for validation of the scale and testing the research hypotheses. Statistical analysis sustained the hypotheses and suitability of the research model. Hence, it may be concluded that national responsibility has significant negative relationship with organizational indifference and significant positive relationship with organizational citizenship behavior. In the light of these results, the said scale enjoys a high degree of validity.

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