Revisiting the scale of the Moral Entrepreneurial Personality in China
Main Article Content
Moral entrepreneurs have been defined as activists who devote considerable time to influencing people to change their values to a particular value system (Becker, 1963; Posner, 1999). Yurtsever (2003) built a measurement model of the moral personality of entrepreneurs, called the Moral Entrepreneur’s Personality (MEP) through an intensive study of members of two nonprofit organizations as well as students, professors, and staff members from two universities. Creating Public Awareness, Resistance, Anticipating Threats, and Mobilizing Power have been identified as the four dimension components of the MEP.
In the present study the aim was to examine the generalizability of the MEP measurement model in a Chinese context through a large-scale survey of top managers of Chinese corporations.
Method
Data were collected in two phases. Respondents in the first phase survey (45.2% response rate) were 144 top managers (48 women and 96 men) with a mean age of 43.2 years, from corporations in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Hubei, and Liaoning. In the second phase (40.3% response rate), participants were 237 top managers (79 women and 158 men) with an average age of 40.2 from corporations in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Hubei, and Sichuan.
The 34-item Moral Entrepreneurial Personality (MEP) questionnaire, developed by Yurtsever (2003) was administered in the first phase. The scale was also translated into Chinese then back into English by different translators to ensure accuracy in meanings. The internal consistency of the total scale and subscales has been found to be no less than 0.71.
Results and Discussion
With respect to consistency with Yurtsever’s (2003) findings, principal component factor analysis with Varimax rotation for Sample 1 revealed a four-factor solution (Resistance, Creating Public Awareness, Anticipating Threats, and Mobilizing Power), explaining a total of 62.7% of the variance (range 25.4% to 7.7%). The internal reliability coefficients were 0.81, 0.83, 0.86, and 0.84 for the subscales and 0.84 for the whole scale.
It should be noted that some modifications were made to the original scale. Four Resistance items were removed, as the loadings of Items 2 and 26 were less than 0.50, while the loadings of Item 31 and Item 17 exceeded 0.50 on two factors simultaneously. Four Creating Public Awareness items from the original scale were also removed, as the loadings of Items 7 and 14 were less than 0.50, while the loadings of Item 20 and Item 12 exceeded 0.50 on two factors simultaneously.
On the basis of the refined 26-item scale, structural equation modeling was applied to analyze the data of the second sample. Confirmatory factor analysis verified the hypothesized model, by a group of satisfactory fitting parameters (χ2/df = 2.13; GFI = 0.96; AGFI = 0.94; NFI = 0.95; TLI = 0.95; CFI = 0.98; IFI = 0.97; RMSEA = 0.03).
The findings generally provided support for the generalizability of the four-dimension MEP model, developed by Yurtsever (2003). It is suggested that a revised 26-item scale might be more appropriate in China. A possible direction for future study is further validation using other groups of people such as public servants, or team managers.
References
Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders. New York: The Free Press.
Posner, R. A. (1999). The problems of moral and legal theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Yurtsever, G. (2003). Measuring the moral entrepreneurial personality. Social Behavior and Personality: An international journal, 31, 1-12.
Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders. New York: The Free Press.
Posner, R. A. (1999). The problems of moral and legal theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Yurtsever, G. (2003). Measuring the moral entrepreneurial personality. Social Behavior and Personality: An international journal, 31, 1-12.
This study was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China 70702020. Appreciation is due to anonymous reviewers.