Organizational efficacy, job satisfaction and well-being : The Italian adaptation and validation of Bohn organizational efficacy scale

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the structure, reliability, construct validity, and group invariance of the Italian version of the Bohn Organizational Efficacy Scale (OES), a self-report questionnaire for organizational efficacy assessment in the business context. Design/methodology/approach – The first study included Italian employees of a pasta factory ( n =120) to test divergent, convergent, and discriminant validity of the OES with existing instruments. The second study combined three hospital ( n =180 Italian health workers) to confirm the structure of the scale. Findings – Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the three-factor solution (collaboration, sense of mission and future, and sense of resilience), and that the structure of the scale was the same across employees of hospital and pasta factory. Results revealed a high internal reliability. The OES correlated positively with corresponding aspects of organizational functioning, well-being, and job satisfaction. The scale did not correlate with measures of general self-efficacy and personal empowerment. Levels of job satisfaction and well-being resulted higher among people with moderate/high organizational efficacy than among adults with low organizational efficacy. Research limitations/implications – Because of the chosen research approach could lead to common method variance issues: it will be important to determine the associations of OES with non-self-report assessments of the same construct. Practical implications – The OES can be applied optimally in the empirical study of factors influencing organizational setting and used in training aiming at strengthening employees’ collective skills. Originality/value – The OES is a valid instrument to measure organizational efficacy. Findings highlighted a strong relationship between collective efficacy, job satisfaction and well-being.