The development of authentic leadership measure and its validation on follower's well being and innovative work behavior in the Thai context

Abstract

This study attempted to develop and validate a measure of authentic leadership in the Thai context and to examine its nomological network with follower wellbeing and innovative work behavior. The definition of Thai authentic leadership was found to be consistent with the authentic leadership definition and the four constructs of Walumbwa et al., (2008) authentic leadership theory. Moreover, the effect of being collectivist in Thailand suggested an additional dimension of authentic leadership, namely “Relationship harmony”. In order to develop a new scale, the research was designed to have two separate studies; Scale development study and Scale validation study. In the first study, 65 potential items were generated to assess the dimensions and item validity. The total of 15 items was deducted during the content validity assessment. To identify items to be retained for the authentic leadership scale, an instrument administration was conducted through a pilot study with 172 Royal Thai Armed Forced officers. Participants completed 50-item of the pilot Thai authentic leadership scale. Results from item analysis and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) suggested having 21 items with five dimensional constructs. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was further tested to confirm the constructs with 400 Royal Thai Navy officers from Head Quarters. Results suggested deleting 2 items due to factor loadings weight was lower than the criteria (ʎ ≤ 0.40). Thus, the finalised version of Thai authentic leadership scale consisted of 19 items with five dimensional constructs. A validation study was conducted to test validation and reliability of the newly developed 19-authentic scale and test a nomological network with follower wellbeing and innovative work behavior with 644 Royal Thai Navy officers working in the other three operational branches – Royal Thai Fleet; Naval Dockyard Department; and Naval Studies and Research. Participants completed a survey consisting of four instruments: a 19-item authentic leadership measure; a 30-item transformational leadership measure; a 30-item well-being; and 10-item innovative work behaviour. Data analysis in this study included bivarate correlation, CFA, path analysis, SEM, and bootstrapping. Results revealed that the five-dimensional model was significantly fit to the observed data. Validation and reliability of the 19-item authentic leadership was also statistically supported. Moreover, results indicated a positive correlation between authentic leadership and transformational leadership although these two measures were able to statistically determine a significant difference. In addition,positive influential relationship between authentic leadership and follower wellbeing, and innovative work behaviour were found. A mediation effect of wellbeing was also found in the relationship between authentic leadership and follower innovative work behaviour. Further discussion of the implications of the findings, limitations, and recommendations for future practices and research were discussed.