An Examination of Construct Proliferation in Workplace Psychological Construct Literature and Measurement

Keywords: Job Attitudes, Workplace Psychological Constructs, Organizational Support, Organizational Justice, Organizational Identity, Job Involvement, Organizational Commitment, Job Embeddedness, Job Satisfaction, Engagement

Abstract: We examined the possibility of construct proliferation within workplace psychological constructs using two sorting tasks in which 21 subject matter experts (SMEs) and then another 12 SMEs sorted the items from popular workplace psychological construct measures. Findings from the first substantive-validity analysis (SVA) indicate a consistent inability to distinguish the intended construct for most of the items and possible clusters of overlapping measures. The second sorting task and SVA takes a deeper look into one of the discovered clusters and supports the results from the first sorting task. Future studies are suggested to replicate these findings and provide triangulation to further shape possible clusters of conceptual overlap.