Psychometric assessment of a scale to measure bonding workplace social capital

OBJECTIVES Workplace social capital (WSC) has attracted increasing attention as an organizational and psychosocial factor related to worker health. This study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of a newly developed WSC scale for use in work environments, where bonding social capital is important. METHODS We assessed the psychometric properties of a newly developed 6-item scale to measure bonding WSC using two data sources. Participants were 1,650 randomly selected workers who completed an online survey. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted. We examined the item-item and item-total correlations, internal consistency, and associations between scale scores and a previous 8-item measure of WSC. We evaluated test-retest reliability by repeating the survey with 900 of the respondents 2 weeks later. The overall scale reliability was quantified by an intraclass coefficient and the standard error of measurement. We evaluated convergent validity by examining the association with several relevant workplace psychosocial factors using a dataset from workers employed by an electrical components company (n = 2,975). RESULTS The scale was unidimensional. The item-item and item-total correlations ranged from 0.52 to 0.78 (p < 0.01) and from 0.79 to 0.89 (p < 0.01), respectively. Internal consistency was good (Cronbach's α coefficient: 0.93). The correlation with the 8-item scale indicated high criterion validity (r = 0.81) and the scale showed high test-retest reliability (r = 0.74, p < 0.01). The intraclass coefficient and standard error of measurement were 0.74 (95% confidence intervals: 0.71-0.77) and 4.04 (95% confidence intervals: 1.86-6.20), respectively. Correlations with relevant workplace psychosocial factors showed convergent validity. CONCLUSIONS The results confirmed that the newly developed WSC scale has adequate psychometric properties.