Development and psychometric properties of Egoism at Work Attitude Questionnaire

A selfish approach in the workplace can have harmful effects on employees and the organization. Employee egoism has received limited attention in the workplace context. Only one measure had been used to verify this phenomenon, but it was not designed for business and had some methodological limitations. This study aimed to operationalize workplace egoism and presented a measure for its verification.

The construct, convergent and criterion validity, as well as internal consistency of the Egoism at Work Attitude Questionnaire (EWAQ), were examined on the three samples that consisted of Polish employees.

An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) involving 800 employees from Poland revealed a one-factor structure of the EWAQ, which explained 66.99% variance in the egoism attitude in the workplace. In a sample of 754 employees, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the good construct validity and internal consistency of EWAQ, with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.89. These values align with Bagozzi and Heatherton's (1994) criteria for the magnitude of factor loadings, average variance extracted, and composite reliability, which corroborate the good convergent validity of this tool. The criterion validity of the EWAQ was confirmed in two samples of Polish employees, showing correlations with dark triad traits, instrumental ethical climate, and indicators of occupational well-being.

The EWAQ is a psychometrically sound measure of egoistic attitudes at work and is recommended for use among Polish employees.