Assessing a short-version of the South African psychological ownership questionnaire (SAPOS)

The aim of this study is to provide managers within South African organisations with an instrument that effectively measures employees’ perceptions of psychological ownership. Although the South African Psychological Ownership Questionnaire (SAPOS) – which measures the four dimensions of identity, responsibility, autonomy, and territoriality – is confirmed and validated for a South African sample (Olckers, 2013), it is important to also assess the five-factor model where self-identity and sense of belongingness is separated, as proposed by Avey, et al. (2009). Furthermore, in order to ensure active and reflective participation from employees, the questionnaire was further refined in order to determine a shortened version that is easier to complete in a shorter amount of time. A quantitative research design was used to guide the research study and convenient sampling was used to collect the data. The 69-item SAPOS questionnaire was used to collect participants’ responses (n = 967) at a single point in time. The best fitting model was determined by means of confirmatory factor analysis. The five factor model was determined to be the best fitting model, and a shortened version of the SAPOS with 24 items was confirmed and validated. The shortened version of the SAPOS would enable organisations to strive towards identifying phenomena using a validated questionnaire with the smallest number of reliable items. Participants are likely to reflect actively on their answers, and would be more inclined to complete the questionnaire because they perceive it as less cumbersome to complete.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Olckers, Chantal

• psychological ownership
• questionnaire refinement
• confirmatory factor analysis
• validity
• reliability
• cross-sectional study.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/2263/110169

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/110169