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Las Hayas2017
Las Hayas2017
To cite this article: Abel Las-Hayas, Ana Lisbona & Francisco J. Palací (2018) Initiative in work
teams: adaptation and validation of the Personal Initiative at Group Level Scale / Iniciativa en los
equipos de trabajo: adaptación y validación de la Escala de Iniciativa Personal a nivel Grupal,
Revista de Psicología Social, 33:1, 142-173, DOI: 10.1080/02134748.2017.1385240
Article views: 88
This paper was accepted by the last editorial team. / Este artículo fue aceptado por el
anterior equipo editorial.
English version: pp. 142–156 / Versión en español: pp. 157–171
References / Referencias: pp. 171–173
Translated from Spanish / Traducción del español: Mary Black
Authors’ Address / Correspondencia con los autores: Ana Lisbona, Facultad de
Psicología, UNED, Despacho 1.49. C/ Juan del Rosal, 10, 28040 Madrid, España. E-mail:
amlisbona@psi.uned.es
lower level which combine, share and are expressed as a collective phenomenon
as bottom-up emerging processes (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000; Rousseau, 1985).
The distinction that Marks, Mathieu, and Zaccaro (2001) make between team
processes and emerging states of the team may be useful when understanding the
conceptualization of personal initiative at group level as a collective phenomenon.
Compared to the inventory of actions carried out by group members in team
processes, with characteristics such as being interdependent and defined by con-
verting an input into an output through verbal, behavioural and cognitive activities
so that the team objectives are achieved through the organization of a series of
tasks, emerging states are more dynamic and defined as the cognitive, motiva-
tional and affective states of teams, not as the sum of the cognitive, motivational
and effective states of the team members (Marks et al., 2001). That is, emerging
states refer to qualities of the teams that represent the attitudes, values, cognitions,
conducts and motivations that the team members have in common, not the sum of
their interactions. The origin of the research into emerging processes originates in
chaos theory and seems essential to understanding complexity and effectiveness in
organizations (Costa et al., 2014; Kozlowski & Klein, 2000).
Therefore, it is suggested that personal initiative at group level is a collective
construct which can occur in the work team and is defined by the conceptualiza-
tion of personal initiative (Frese & Fay, 2001) as a behavioural syndrome in which
the team expresses an approach to work that is self-initiated, proactive, persistent,
capable of changing the environment and pro organization.
The study by Brav, Andersson, and Lantz (2009) uses a scale similar to ours,
but they do not conceptualize group initiative as a collective phenomenon, nor do
they analyse the psychometric properties of a scale conceptualized at group level.
Conceptualizing personal initiative at group level means that it is a construct
shared within the team, not the mere sum of individual initiatives. Thus,
individual perceptions should converge, and there should be sufficient intra-
group homogeneity at the level of work team. This intra-group homogeneity is a
sign that this shared perception exists, that it is implicit in the very definition of
the concept. The calculation of the different statistical indexes (which shall be
outlined throughout this article) which allows us to statistically aggregate the
individual data into team data is not merely a statistical analysis but will
reinforce the fact that personal initiative at group level is something more than
the sum of individual initiatives; in short, it is a shared perception on initiative
as a work team.
The purpose of this study is to test our conceptualization of personal initiative
as a phenomenon which can take place in the work team by adapting and
validating a Personal Initiative at Group Level (PIGL) Scale. From the psycho-
metric standpoint, we hope that just like individual initiative, personal initiative at
group level will reflect a single factor to explain its dimension and will show
acceptable reliability and validity (convergent, discriminant and concurrent).
Likewise, the relationships between this variable and outcome variables related
to organizational performance will also be analysed, as explained below.
146 A. Las-Hayas et al.
Given that the climate for initiative refers to a facet of the organizational
climate (Baer & Frese, 2003) and is therefore a collective phenomenon, we
believe that it will be partly related to personal initiative at group level, although
the latter will have greater predictive power over group phenomena.
Method
Development of the Personal Initiative at Group Level (PIGL) scale
To generate the items on the Personal Initiative at Group Level (PIGL) Scale, we
started with Frese et al.’s Self-Reported Initiative Scale (1997) adapted into
Spanish by Lisbona and Frese (2012), and we modified the level of definition
of the construct, going from the organization to the work team. Just as in the
individual version, this new scale is comprised of seven items. The Self-Reported
Initiative Scale has been used in numerous studies during the past decade and is
regarded as a suitable measure of the conduct of personal initiative since it directly
and broadly captures cognitions and other facets of conduct which are not always
present in other techniques (Bledow & Frese, 2009).
Participants
The study was conducted with a sample of 399 employees (51.5% female
and 48.5% male) organized into 91 work teams belonging to 60 different
organizations. Of these 399 employees, 308 are members of the work teams
and 91 are supervisors of these teams. Regarding the organizations, they are
located in Spain (95.8%, of which: 46.0% Basque Country, 23.0% Madrid,
9.2% Galicia, 6.3% Barcelona, 5.9% Andalusia and 4.6% other) and Chile
(4.2%); and they include private companies (71.3%), public administrations
(17.5%), non-profit organizations (7.3%) and other kinds of organizations
(3.8%). By size, they were classified into organizations with more than 250
employees (39.9%), 50 to 250 employees (22.0%), 10 to 49 employees
(28.0%) and fewer than 10 employees (10.1%). The sample was comprised
148 A. Las-Hayas et al.
Procedure
Via key people in their structure, organizations were invited to participate in the
study. The key individuals, team members and supervisors were unaware of the
purpose and hypotheses of the study, and they were simply told that the purpose
was to analyse work teams. Following Kozlowski and Bell (2003), the definition
of work teams we used was groups that exist to perform organizationally impor-
tant tasks, that maintain a certain degree of interdependence in terms of both
objectives and tasks, that manage and maintain their limits and that are immersed
in an organizational context which limits their activity and influences their
exchanges with other teams within the organization.
The following inclusion criteria for work teams were established: (a) being
active and operating for at least six months; (b) being comprised of at least three
members (not counting the leader); (c) getting responses to the questionnaire from
at least two members per team; (d) having a single leader per team and getting the
leader’s responses to the questionnaire; and (e) limiting the number of different
teams per organization to five. Both the definition of the work teams and the
inclusion criteria were presented and explained to the key individuals so they
could identify the teams in their organizations.
Two different questionnaires were developed, one for the team members and
the other for the team supervisors. Both questionnaires were administered volun-
tarily online. The anonymity and confidentiality of the data were guaranteed. The
questionnaire for the leader was administered after checking that the team mem-
bers had responded.
Instruments
In order to minimize the bias of common method variance, we used two
questionnaires: one for members of the team, which measures the predictive
variables, and the other for the team supervisors, which measures the criterion
variables.
Personal initiative in work teams / Iniciativa personal en equipos de trabajo 149
Climate for initiative. To evaluate the climate for initiative, we used the Climate
for Initiative Scale by Baer and Frese (2003) adapted to Spanish by Lisbona,
Palací, and Gómez-Bernabeu (2008). This new scale is composed of seven items
with Likert-type responses from 1 (‘Totally disagree’) to 5 (‘Totally agree’). One
example of the items is ‘The people in our organization actively deal with
problems’.
Data analysis
First we calculated the descriptive statistics of all the variables both individually
and with the aggregate data, given that the predictive variables were measured at
the level of work team. To do so, we performed the aggregate analyses of the
individual responses with several agreement indexes, using two complementary
approaches: the first, based on consistency, was the Intraclass Correlation
Coefficient ICC1 (referring to individual variability explained be belonging to
the work team) and the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient ICC2 (which considers
the reliability of the group measures). Values higher than .12 for the ICC1 and
150 A. Las-Hayas et al.
higher than .60 for the ICC2 are considered a suitable level of intra-unit agree-
ment. The second approach is based more on consensus and used the Average
Deviation Index (ADM(J)). This index was chosen over the rwg because of its
advantages: there is no need to model the distribution of null or arbitrary
responses and it estimates the agreement in the metrics of the original response
scale. When the value of the ADM(J) was equal to or under 1, we considered this
agreement at team level.
To confirm the structure of a single factor on the Personal Initiative at Group
Level (PIGL) Scale, we performed a confirmatory factor analysis using structural
equation modelling.
We also used structural equations to analyse the concurrent validity and to
contrast the study’s three hypotheses. The estimation method used was maximum
likelihood, with three absolute indexes considered as goodness of fit statistics: χ2,
Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) and Standardized Root
Mean Square Residual (SRMR).
Since the χ2 statistic is sensitive to the sample size, the use of relative indexes
is recommended to evaluate the goodness of fit of the models; therefore, we also
considered the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and the TLI. For the RMSEA and the
SRMR, values under .08 are considered indicative of acceptable fit, while values
under .05 are considered indicative of excellent fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999). For the
CFI and the TLI, values equal to or higher than .90 are considered indicative of
good fit.
The SPSS Statistics 22 package was used to analyse the data, and AMOS 22
for analyses with structural equations.
Results
Due to the self-reported nature of the data, Harman’s single-factor test was
performed through exploratory factor analysis in order to verify whether there
was bias in common method variance. The results of the test showed the presence
of four discrete factors in the data set which explain 68.91% of the variance. The
first explains 38.35% of the variance, the second 14.42% and the third 8.65%.
These results are consistent with our propositions and suggest that common
method variance has not been a probable contaminant in the study.
Reliability analysis
The internal consistency of the Personal Initiative at Group Level (PIGL) Scale
was examined via Cronbach’s alpha index, as shown in Table 1.
The score was .85, which means that the instrument is highly reliable. The
composite reliability coefficient was also calculated, since this coefficient does not
depend on the number of attributes associated with each concept, which renders it
more suitable. The result is slightly higher than the Cronbach’s alpha (.89; see
Table 3). In both cases, the criterion of .70 is exceeded.
Personal initiative in work teams / Iniciativa personal en equipos de trabajo 151
Table 2. Statistics (mean, standard deviation, bias, kurtosis) on the Personal Initiative at
Group Level (PIGL) Scale.
Item Mean SD Bias Kurtosis
1. The people on our team actively deal with problems. 4.17 0.839 −1.101 1.476
2. When something goes wrong on our team, people 4.19 0.836 −1.122 1.525
immediately look for a solution.
3. When there is an opportunity to get actively involved, 407 0.857 −0.787 0.428
the people on our team take advantage of it.
4. The people on our team take the initiative 3.90 0.867 −0.552 0.038
immediately, often more than on other teams.
5. The people on our team use opportunities to achieve 4.15 0.855 −1.103 1.527
goals.
6. The people on our team usually do more than is asked 4.13 0.905 −0.903 0.310
of them.
7. The people on our team are especially good at putting 3.88 0.950 −0.461 −0.322
new ideas into practice.
Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics of the seven items on the Personal
Initiative at Group Level Scale, which include central tendency, variability,
asymmetry and kurtosis values.
The single-factor model shows appropriate fit [χ2(14) = 73.14, p < .000,
RMSEA = .117, CFI = .945; TLI = .889; SRMR = .0417], except for the absolute
RMSEA index, which is slightly higher at .100.
Convergent validity
To consider convergent validity, the standardized factor loads (λ) of the latent
constructs (personal initiative at group level and climate for initiative) must be
statistically significant. In all cases, the values of λ were higher than .50 and the
values of t were higher than 1.96 (p < .001; see Table 3). Therefore, we can state
that the convergent validity is acceptable.
Discriminant validity
The criterion to evaluate the discriminant validity between the two predictive
variables evaluated by the team members was that the square root of the AVE
had to be higher in the correlation between personal initiative at group level
and climate for initiative. Table 3 shows the values of the square root of the
AVE. For the personal initiative at group level variable, the values of the
square root of the AVE for aggregate and individual scores are .860 and .739,
Personal initiative in work teams / Iniciativa personal en equipos de trabajo 153
Table 3. Factor loads (λ, t values, reliability coefficients and Average Variance Extracted
(AVE).
Aggregate scores at
Individual scores group level
Latent variable Items λ t CFC AVE λ t CFC AVE
Personal initiative at group PIGL1 .783 - .894 .546 .855 .952 .741
level PIGL2 .813 15.61 .927 12.287
PIGL3 .755 13.73 .871 10.763
PIGL4 .732 13.08 .854 10.268
PIGL5 .693 12.35 .813 9.419
PIGL6 .671 11.88 .847 10.147
PIGL7 .716 12.75 .854 10.310
Climate for initiative CI1 .811 - .924 .637 .775 . 912 .597
CI2 .842 17.49 .769 7.458
CI3 .848 17.35 .738 7.116
CI4 .786 15.52 .738 7.126
CI5 .797 15.78 .728 6.948
CI6 .705 13.47 .846 8.216
CI7 .789 15.69 .807 7.780
respectively, and for the climate for initiative variable they are .798 and .773
for aggregate and individual scores, respectively. The value of the correlation
between both constructs is therefore lower for aggregate scores, .52, than for
the individual scores, .55, so we can state that the discriminant validity is
acceptable.
Discussion
This study set out to analyse personal initiative at group level as a collective
psychosocial construct which can occur in a work team. The purpose of this study
was to analyse the suitability of the personal initiative at group level construct by
adapting and validating a scale that measures the construct. The results reveal that
the Personal Initiative at Group Level Scale shows high reliability and, as
expected, its items reflect a single factor. The results of the analyses performed
allow us to corroborate some of the hypotheses posited. Specifically, they show
that climate for initiative is positively related to personal initiative at group level
(hypothesis 1). The empirical evidence also reveals that personal initiative at
group level is positively related to team productivity (hypothesis 2) and that
climate for initiative is positively related to radical innovation (hypothesis 3).
The productivity and innovation of teams are complex processes in which a wide
variety of variables come into play: at group level, the structure of the team or
system of transactive memory; at individual level, skills, knowledge and psycho-
logical states; and at organizational level, human resources practices, culture and
climate or external environment (Anderson et al., 2004). In this context, we
believe that despite the fact that the proportion of variance explained by personal
initiative is small, it has theoretical and practical interest and opens up future
avenues of research.
The results of the aggregation analyses were high, reflecting a high level of
shared perceptions, which could itself be considered additional proof of validity of
the construct inasmuch as we are conceptualizing personal initiative at group level
as a shared property. Even more importantly, our study reveals that the signifi-
cance of the correlations of personal initiative on productivity and innovation and
other statistical data, such as the AVE or the composite reliability coefficient,
increases thanks to the data aggregation, which allows us — at least initially — to
justify our proposals on personal initiative at group level, as well as its
importance.
The conceptualization of personal initiative as a group variable has several
implications. First, it serves as a bridge between the individual and the group level
of the construct, thus expanding the explanatory power of the personal initiative
model. It also contributes to our understanding of the work processes on teams
associated with the team’s innovation and productivity.
Personal initiative in work teams / Iniciativa personal en equipos de trabajo 155
clearly geared towards activity sectors that more intensively employ what are
known as knowledge workers, which may be influencing our results. Therefore, it
would be wise to continue the validation process of the Personal Initiative at
Group Level (PIGL) Scale with other samples, both domestic and international, in
which a confirmatory factor analysis is also applied in order to contrast the factor
structure identified. Thirdly, the use of only one-item measures, as in radical
innovation in our case, prevents us from calculating its reliability. Furthermore,
the use of subjective measures in the dependent variables may entail different
kinds of biases, despite the fact that some procedural measures were taken, like
separating the predictive variables from the criterion statistical variables in the
design of the questionnaire, as well as performing Harman’s single-factor test post
hoc in the analysis. Therefore, in future studies objective measures of productivity
and innovation should be used, even though the previous research has used this
kind of measure.
Fifth, instead of a transversal design, in future studies the Personal Initiative at
Group Level Scale could be included in longitudinal designs which provide more
precise information on how the relationships in this variable take place over time.
Personal initiative in work teams / Iniciativa personal en equipos de trabajo 157
estudios que han empleado medidas objetivas para evaluar la innovación — como
el número de sugerencias realizadas, el número de nuevos productos o el de
patentes registradas — frecuentemente la innovación a nivel de equipo ha sido
evaluada por los miembros del equipo o por los supervisores (Hülsheger,
Anderson, & Salgado, 2009). Además, es un proceso complejo que necesita
considerar como antecedentes aspectos individuales, grupales y organizacionales.
La literatura reconoce la importancia de la innovación no sólo para las grandes
empresas multinacionales, sino también para las pequeñas y medianas empresas y
para organizaciones no lucrativas (Rosenbusch, Brinckmann, & Bausch, 2011).
Recientemente, diversos estudios han distinguido entre innovación radical e
innovación incremental (Fischer et al., 2014). La innovación incremental es la
capacidad para generar innovaciones que refinen y refuercen los productos y
servicios existentes (Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005), mientras que la innovación
radical da lugar a cambios fundamentales en las actividades de la organización o
del sector con respecto a las prácticas vigentes (Camison-Zornoza, Lapiedra-
Alcamí, Segarra-Cipres, & Boronat-Navarro, 2004). Los competidores responden
usualmente con rapidez a la innovación incremental. Por el contrario, la
innovación radical es mucho más difícil de ser respondida con éxito en el corto
plazo y, a consecuencia de ello, suele implicar incrementos de los márgenes y
beneficios de las empresas.
La relación entre iniciativa personal e innovación ha sido estudiada en
diversos trabajos previos (Binnewies & Gromer, 2012; Binnewies, Ohly, &
Sonnentag, 2007; Fischer et al., 2014; Frese, Rooks, & Sserwanga, 2014).
Frese et al. (2014) encontraron relación entre iniciativa personal e innovación
en emprendedores en el ámbito rural, pero no así en el ámbito urbano, y
obtuvieron evidencia favorable de que el clima para la iniciativa estaba
relacionado con la innovación organizacional. Por su parte, Fischer et al.
(2014) profundizaron en esa relación y encontraron empíricamente que el
clima para la iniciativa se relacionaba con la innovación radical, pero no así
con la innovación incremental. La definición de iniciativa personal hace
pensar que su concepción proactiva implique un mayor peso sobre la
innovación radical frente a la innovación incremental. Asimismo, la
innovación parece depender más de aspectos organizacionales que de aspec-
tos grupales, por eso, al igual que en el trabajo de Fischer et al. (2014),
esperamos que el clima para la iniciativa se relacione con la innovación
radical y la iniciativa personal al nivel grupal lo haga con la productividad.
Método
Desarrollo de la escala iniciativa personal a nivel grupal (IPG)
Para la generación de los ítems de la escala de Iniciativa Personal a nivel Grupal
(IPG) se partió de la escala de Iniciativa Autoinformada de Frese et al. (1997)
adaptada al español por Lisbona y Frese (2012), y se modificó el nivel de
definición del constructo, pasando de la organización al equipo de trabajo. Al
igual que en la versión individual, esta nueva escala se compuso de siete ítems. La
escala de Iniciativa Autoinformada ha sido utilizada en numerosos estudios
durante la última década y es considerada una medida adecuada de la conducta
de iniciativa personal al capturar, de forma directa y amplia, cogniciones y otras
facetas de la conducta que no siempre están presentes en otras técnicas (Bledow &
Frese, 2009).
Participantes
El estudio se ha realizado sobre una muestra de 399 empleados (51.5% mujeres y
48.5% hombres) organizados en 91 equipos de trabajo pertenecientes a 60 orga-
nizaciones distintas. De estos 399 empleados, 308 son miembros de los equipos
de trabajo y 91 son supervisores de esos mismos equipos. Respecto a las organi-
zaciones, están situadas en España (95.8%, donde: 46.0% País Vasco, 23.0%
Madrid, 9.2% Galicia, 6.3% Barcelona, 5.9% Andalucía, y 4.6% otras) y Chile
(4.2%); y comprenden empresas privadas (71.3%), administraciones públicas
(17.5%), organizaciones no lucrativas (7.3%) y de otro tipo (3.8%). Por tamaño,
se clasifican en organizaciones de más de 250 trabajadores (39.9%), de entre 50 y
250 trabajadores (22.0%), de entre 10 y 49 trabajadores (28.0%) y de menos de 10
trabajadores (10.1%). La muestra se compone de un número heterogéneo de
sectores: enseñanza y educación (18.4%), selección y trabajo temporal (16.0%),
consultoría y asesoría (11.0%), formación y coaching (9.6%), salud (9.2%),
inserción y desarrollo local (7.9%), industria (7.4%), seguros (6.0%),
distribución (3.2%), marketing (3.2%), software (2.8%), mantenimiento industrial
(2.1%), y otros (3.2%).
Los equipos de trabajo están compuestos, sin contar al líder, mayoritariamente
por entre cuatro y ocho miembros (63.6%) o por menos de cuatro miembros
(25.7%). Son equipos presenciales (83.2%) en los que sus miembros se mantienen
de forma estable y permanente (92.0%). Los participantes tienen una edad media
de 41 años (DT = 10.1) y una antigüedad media en la organización de 11.2 años
(DT = 8.8). Cuentan en gran medida con estudios universitarios (84.2%) y, en
menor medida, de formación profesional (12.1%).
Procedimiento
A través de personas clave de su estructura, se invitó a las organizaciones a
participar en el estudio. El objetivo e hipótesis del estudio permanecieron ciegos
para las personas clave, miembros de los equipos y supervisores, indicándoseles
simplemente que el objetivo era analizar los equipos de trabajo. Siguiendo a
Personal initiative in work teams / Iniciativa personal en equipos de trabajo 163
Instrumentos
Con el fin de minimizar el sesgo de la varianza del método común, se han
utilizado dos cuestionarios: uno para los miembros del equipo en el que se
miden las variables predictoras y otro para los supervisores de los equipos en el
que se miden las variables criterio.
Análisis de datos
En primer lugar, se calcularon los estadísticos descriptivos de todas las variables,
tanto a nivel individual como con los datos agregados, dado que las variables
predictoras se midieron a nivel de equipo de trabajo. Para ello se realizaron los
análisis de agregación de las respuestas individuales empleando varios índices de
acuerdo, utilizando dos enfoques complementarios: El primero, basado en la
consistencia, empleó el Coeficiente de Correlación Intraclase ICC1 (referido a la
variabilidad individual explicada por la pertenencia al equipo de trabajo) y el
Coeficiente de Correlación Intraclase ICC2 (que considera la fiabilidad de las
medidas grupales). Los valores superiores a .12 para ICC1 y superiores a .60 para
ICC2 son considerados un nivel adecuado de acuerdo intra-unidad. El segundo
enfoque se basa más en el consenso y se empleó el Índice de Desviación
Promedio (ADM(J)). Se escogió este índice frente a rwg por sus ventajas: no
necesita modelar la distribución de respuestas nulas o arbitrarias y estima el
acuerdo en la métrica de la escala original de respuesta. Se consideró el acuerdo
a nivel de equipo cuando el valor del ADM(J) era igual o inferior a 1.
Para confirmar la estructura de un único factor de la escala de Iniciativa
Personal a nivel Grupal (IPG) se llevó a cabo un análisis factorial confirmatorio
utilizando un Modelo de Ecuaciones Estructurales.
También se utilizaron ecuaciones estructurales para analizar la validez con-
currente y contrastar las tres hipótesis del estudio, el método de estimación
utilizado fue el de máxima verosimilitud, considerando como estadísticos de
bondad de ajuste tres índices absolutos: χ2, Root Mean Square Error of
Approximation (RMSEA) y Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR).
Personal initiative in work teams / Iniciativa personal en equipos de trabajo 165
Resultados
Debido a la naturaleza de autoinforme de los datos, se llevó a cabo el test de
un único factor de Harman mediante análisis factorial exploratorio con el fin
de verificar si se había producido el sesgo de la varianza del método común.
Los resultados del test indican la presencia de cuatro factores discretos en el
conjunto de datos, que explican el 68.91% de la varianza. El primero de ellos
explica el 38.35% de la varianza, el segundo el 14.42% y el tercero el 8.65%.
Estos resultados son consistentes con nuestras proposiciones y sugieren que
la varianza del método común no ha sido un contaminante probable en el
estudio.
Análisis de la fiabilidad
La consistencia interna de la escala de Iniciativa Personal a nivel Grupal (IPG) fue
examinada mediante el índice alpha de Cronbach que puede verse en la Tabla 1.
Se obtuvo una puntuación de .85, lo que representa una fiabilidad del
instrumento muy alta. Se calculó también el coeficiente de fiabilidad com-
puesta, ya que este coeficiente no depende del número de atributos asociados
Tabla 2. Estadísticos (media, desviación típica, sesgo, curtosis) escala Iniciativa Personal
a nivel Grupal (IPG).
Ítem Media DT Sesgo Curtosis
1. La gente en nuestro equipo se enfrenta activamente a 4.17 0.839 −1.101 1.476
los problemas.
2. Cuando algo va mal en nuestro equipo, la gente busca 4.19 0.836 −1.122 1.525
inmediatamente una solución.
3. Cuando hay una oportunidad de implicarse 4.07 0.857 −0.787 0.428
activamente, la gente de nuestro equipo la aprovecha.
4. La gente de nuestro equipo toma la iniciativa 3.90 0.867 −0.552 0.038
inmediatamente, más a menudo que en otros equipos.
5. La gente de nuestro equipo utiliza las oportunidades 4.15 0.855 −1.103 1.527
para alcanzar los objetivos.
6. La gente en nuestro equipo normalmente hace más de 4.13 0.905 −0.903 0.310
lo que se le pide.
7. La gente en nuestro equipo es especialmente buena 3.88 0.950 −0.461 −0.322
poniendo en práctica nuevas ideas.
Validez convergente
Para considerar la validez convergente, las cargas factoriales estandarizadas (λ) de
los constructos latentes (Iniciativa Personal a nivel Grupal y el Clima para la
Iniciativa) deben ser estadísticamente significativas. En todos los casos los valores
de λ son superiores a .50 y los valores de t superan el valor de 1.96 (p < .001;
véase Tabla 3). Por tanto, se puede afirmar que la validez convergente es
adecuada.
Validez discriminante
El criterio para evaluar la validez discriminante entre las dos variables predictoras
evaluadas por los miembros del equipo ha sido que la raíz cuadrada del AVE fuera
superior a la correlación entre la Iniciativa Personal a nivel Grupal y el Clima para
la Iniciativa. En la Tabla 3 aparecen los valores de la raíz cuadrada del AVE. Para
la variable Iniciativa Personal a nivel Grupal los valores de la raíz cuadrada del
AVE para las puntuaciones agregadas e individuales son .860 y .739, respectiva-
mente y para la variable Clima para la Iniciativa .798 y .773 para las puntuaciones
agregadas e individuales, respectivamente. El valor de la correlación entre ambos
constructos es inferior tanto para las puntuaciones agregadas .52, como para las
puntuaciones individuales .55, por lo que podemos afirmar que la validez dis-
criminante es adecuada.
Discusión
En este estudio se propone analizar la iniciativa personal a nivel grupal como un
constructo psicosocial colectivo, que puede producirse en el equipo de trabajo. El
objetivo de este estudio era analizar la idoneidad del constructo de iniciativa
personal a nivel grupal, adaptando y validando una escala que mida el constructo.
Los resultados revelan que la escala de Iniciativa Personal a nivel Grupal obtiene
una fiabilidad alta y, tal y como se esperaba, que sus ítems responden a un único
factor. Los resultados de los análisis efectuados permiten corroborar algunas de las
hipótesis planteadas. Concretamente, se muestra que el Clima para la Iniciativa
está positivamente relacionado con la Iniciativa Personal a nivel Grupal (hipótesis
1). La evidencia empírica también revela que la Iniciativa Personal a nivel Grupal
está positivamente relacionada con la productividad del equipo (hipótesis 2) y que
el Clima para la Iniciativa está positivamente relacionado con la innovación
radical (hipótesis 3). La productividad y la innovación de los equipos son
procesos complejos e intervienen muy diversas variables; así, a nivel grupal, los
procesos grupales, la estructura del equipo o el sistema de memoria transactiva; a
nivel individual, las habilidades, conocimientos o estados psicológicos; y a nivel
organizacional, las prácticas de recursos humanos, la cultura y el clima o el
ambiente externo (Anderson et al., 2004). En este contexto consideramos que a
pesar de que la proporción de varianza explicada por la iniciativa personal es
pequeña tiene interés teórico y práctico, y abre futuras líneas de investigación.
Los resultados de los análisis de agregación fueron altos, reflejando un elevado
nivel de percepciones compartidas, lo que podría considerarse en sí mismo un
elemento adicional de validez del constructo en la medida en que estamos
conceptualizando la Iniciativa Personal a nivel Grupal como una propiedad
compartida. Más importante todavía, nuestra investigación pone de manifiesto
que la significación de las correlaciones de la iniciativa personal sobre la produc-
tividad y la innovación y otros datos estadísticos, como por ejemplo el AVE o el
coeficiente de fiabilidad compuesta, aumenta gracias a la agregación de datos, lo
que nos permite justificar, al menos inicialmente, nuestras propuestas sobre la
iniciativa personal a nivel grupal, así como la importancia de la misma.
La conceptualización de la iniciativa personal como variable grupal tiene
varias implicaciones. Por una parte sirve de puente entre el nivel individual y
grupal del constructo, ampliando de esta manera el poder explicativo del modelo
de iniciativa personal. Asimismo contribuye a la comprensión de los procesos de
trabajo en equipo vinculados con la innovación y la productividad de los equipos.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. / Los autores no han referido
ningún potencial conflicto de interés en relación con este artículo.
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