Spanish validation of the mindful organizing scale: A questionnaire for the assessment of collective mindfulness

摘要

Introduction: Mindful organizing (also known as collective mindfulness) is a team level construct that is said to underpin the principles of high-reliability organizations (HROs), as it has shown to lead to almost error-free performance. While mindful organizing research has proliferated in recent years, studies on how to measure mindful organizing are scarce. Vogus and Sutcliffe (2007) originally validated a nine-item "Mindful Organizing Scale" but few subsequent validation studies of this scale exist. The present study aimed to validate a Spanish version of the Mindful Organizing Scale.Method: The sample included 47 teams (comprising of a total of 573 workers with an average team size of 12.19) from a Spanish nuclear power plant. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), reliability analysis, and an analysis of aggregation indices were carried out. A correlation analysis and CFA were used to further validate the scale in terms of its distinctiveness from, and relationship with, other team-related variables such as safety culture, team safety climate, and team learning. Finally, evidence of criterion-related validity was collected by testing the incremental validity of the mindful organizing scale in the association with various workplace safety outcomes (safety compliance and safety participation).Results: The results confirmed a unidimensional structure of the scale and indicated satisfactory internal consistency. Aggregation of the scores to the team level was justified while significant positive correlations between mindful organizing and other team-related variables (safety culture, team safety climate, team learning) were found. Moreover, mindful organizing showed distinctiveness from safety culture, team safety climate and team learning. Finally, incremental validity of the scale was supported, as it shows to be associated with safety compliance and safety participation above and beyond other related constructs.Conclusions: The Spanish version of the Mindful Organizing Scale has shown to be a valid and reliable scale that can be used to measure mindful organizing.Contributions: The validation of the unidimensional Spanish version of Vogus and Sutcliffe's (2007) Mindful Organizing Scale provides researchers and practitioners with a reliable and valid tool to use in Spanish speaking organizations to measure mindful organizing, which has been shown to result in more reliable performance. Theoretically, this study offers four contributions. Firstly, it validates a scale that operationalizes the 'mindful organizing' construct in a traditional high-reliability organization (nuclear power plant) which has never been done before. Secondly, it offers evidence that a mindful organizing scale can be validated in a new cultural context and language (Spanish) to any of the previous studies done before it. Thirdly, it adds to our understanding of mindful organizing's nomological network by distinguishing it from other team and safety-related variables. Lastly, it builds on current research showing sound psychometric properties of a one-dimensional, quantitative measure of mindful organizing.