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Published on: August 29, 2025
Development and validation of a multidimensional organizational dehumanization scale: Evidence from higher education
Semin Kazazoglu1, Dilruba Sahin2,3, Cem Oktay Guzeller4
1Department of Foreign Languages Education, Faculty of Education, Yildiz Technical University, Güngören, İstanbul, Türkiye.
Plos One
|July 6, 2026
Summary
This study developed a reliable scale to measure organizational dehumanization in academia. The new instrument helps assess how academics perceive devaluation and instrumentality in universities.
Area of Science:
- Organizational Psychology
- Higher Education Studies
- Sociology of Work
Background:
- Organizational dehumanization is a growing concern in higher education, influenced by managerial and metric-driven governance.
- Academics increasingly report experiences of being treated as less than human within their institutions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a psychometrically robust instrument to assess academics' perceived organizational dehumanization.
- To provide a reliable tool for measuring devaluation and instrumentality in academic work environments.
Main Methods:
- Utilized exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with two independent samples of academics in Türkiye (total N=581).
- Examined the scale's factor structure, reliability (internal consistency), and validity (discriminant and convergent).
Main Results:
- A 34-item, two-factor scale measuring Devaluation and Instrumentality was validated.
- The scale demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including acceptable-to-strong model fit indices and high internal consistency (α=.93-.96).
- Evidence for discriminant validity was found, with mixed results for convergent validity at the subdimension level.
Conclusions:
- The developed scale offers a reliable and multidimensional measure of organizational dehumanization perceptions among academics.
- This validated instrument can be used for future research and institutional diagnostics within university contexts.
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