Mental toughness for employees: towards conceptual clarity and scale development
International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management
ISSN: 1741-0401
Article publication date: 14 February 2022
Issue publication date: 26 June 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Time and again, scholars have emphasized the vitality of mental toughness for success in performance-oriented contexts. Despite the awareness about the significance of mental toughness, there is ambiguity in the conceptual consensus of the factors that comprise of the construct in an organizational setup. Second, there is a dearth of a psychometrically sound measure that assesses mental toughness among employees.
Design/methodology/approach
The study follows a multi-method approach to develop a mental toughness questionnaire. First, to arrive at a consensus of the factors that construe mental toughness, a meta-ethnography was done. Subsequently, a measure of mental toughness was developed and tested following scale development norms.
Findings
Drawing from the results of qualitative inquiry, four factors of mental toughness were derived, namely, perseverance, control, challenge and commitment. Then, the scale development process was followed. Results of psychometric testing using three samples were above the acceptable range, justifying the use of developed scale for academic and professional purposes.
Originality/value
This study is a novel attempt in the literature to extract factors of mental toughness through meta-ethnography and consequently develop a scale.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the expert committee for assessing scale items, the participants of our research, the editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
Funding: The authors thank Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, for the monthly stipend provided which was used for travel purposes in collecting data of this research.
Citation
Ruparel, N., Choubisa, R., Seth, H. and Dubey, S. (2023), "Mental toughness for employees: towards conceptual clarity and scale development", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 72 No. 6, pp. 1791-1818. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-01-2021-0011
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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