Scale Development and Validation of a Multi-dimensional Measure of Workplace Favoritism

Abstract

Workplace favoritism research has been steady but limited for decades, yet a rigorously validated, comprehensive measure is not available to researchers. Furthermore, there continues to be concern among management scholars as to whether the concept is worthy of being examined as a stand-alone construct. A general consensus among management scholars is that favoritism is similar enough to organizational justice that it cannot provide additional explanatory value in employee emotional, attitudinal, or behavioral outcomes. This study challenges that ideology through the development and validation of a multi-dimensional workplace favoritism scale that can explain noticeably more variance in turnover intention than what organizational justice dimensions (i.e., procedural, distributive, interpersonal, and informational) can account for. Following Hinkin’s (1998) suggested approach to scale development and procedures used by Akremi and colleagues (Akremi, Gond, Swaen, Roeck, & Igalens, 2018), a five-phase scale development and confirmation process revealed three favoritism subdimensions including cronyism, nepotism, and a dimension related to an individual’s pleasantness and agreeableness. Results indicate that the sub-dimensional favoritism scales are valid and have predictive abilities that go beyond that of which can be accounted for by organizational justice measures.