Psychological ownership: scale development and validation in the Indian context

Abstract

The concept of psychological ownership is sparsely studied in India despite extant empirical evidence supporting its positive impact on organisational outcomes in diverse cultural settings. The problem gets compounded by absence of its scale in Indian (or Asian) context. The present study intends to addresses this concern. It describes a step–by–step scale development and validation process deploying a mix of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The process spanned three independent studies for item generation, scale construction (N = 234) and scale validation (N = 338), and resulted in 12–item three–dimensional psychological ownership scale that showed acceptable psychometric properties (consistent factor structure, reliability and content, concurrent and construct validity). The scale is expected to provide the much needed fillip to studies concerning psychological ownership in India and other culturally similar regions.