Strategic Management Thought

Exploring Organizational Indifference: Creating and Validating a Measure

Authors

1 Associate Professor of Management, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran

2 Assistant Professor of management, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran

3 MA of Public Management

Abstract

The aim of this research is to explore and identify dimensions of   organizational indifference and to provide a measure for assessing indifference levels in organizations for the first time in management community. By organizational indifference we mean a state of mind among employees that draws them to give priority to the material benefit they gain from the organization rather than the latter’s interest and success. To explore this state we interviewed 32 employees of the research organizations, advertising companies, schools, public organizations and universities. By analyzing qualitative data, we found five themes for organizational indifference as follows: indifference towards the manager, indifference towards the organization, indifference towards the clients, indifference towards the colleagues and indifference towards the job. We translated themes to variables and prepared a conceptual and operational framework (5 dimensions, 14 elements, and 33 indicators) for organizational indifference, and, for determining content validity, and sent it to 30 management consultants and experts. (Appendix A). At the second stage, for determining the construct validity of our measure, we established a correlation between this measure and three organizational standard measures, including "organizational commitment", "organizational turnover" and "organizational identity". The results confirm the construct of our measure.

Keywords

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Strategic Management Thought
Volume 4, Issue 2 - Serial Number 2
October 2010
Pages 79-99
  • Receive Date: 09 September 2010
  • Revise Date: 23 September 2010
  • Accept Date: 04 December 2010