Validity and Reliability of the Korean Version of Empowering Leadership Questionnaire

Eun Kyung Kim; Se Young Kim; Myun Sook Jung; Jong Kyung Kim; Sun Ju You

doi:10.15384/kjhp.2017.17.4.275

Korean J Health Promot > Volume 17(4); 2017 > Article

Kim, Kim, Jung, Kim, and You: Validity and Reliability of the Korean Version of Empowering Leadership Questionnaire

Original Article

Korean Journal of Health Promotion 2017;17(4):275-281.

Published online: December 28, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15384/kjhp.2017.17.4.275

Validity and Reliability of the Korean Version of Empowering Leadership Questionnaire

Eun Kyung Kim¹, Se Young Kim²

, Myun Sook Jung³, Jong Kyung Kim⁴, Sun Ju You⁵

¹Department of Nursing, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Korea.

²Department of Nursing, Changwon National University, Changwon, Korea.

³College of Nursing, Institute of Health Science, Gyungsang National University, Jinju, Korea.

⁴College of Nursing, Dankook University, Cheonan, Korea.

⁵Department of Nursing, Mokpo National University, Muan, Korea.

Corresponding author: Se Young Kim, PhD, RN. Department of Nursing, Changwon National University, 20 Changwondaehak-ro, Uichang-gu, Changwon 51140, Korea.
Tel: +82-55-213-3576, Fax: +82-55-213-3579, sarakimk@changwon.ac.kr

Received September 22, 2017 Accepted November 22, 2017

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ABSTRACT

Background

The manager's empowering leadership has been reported to have a positive impact on employees' psychological empowerment, motivation, creativity, and increase commitment and turnover intentions. However, there is a lack of Korean version of empowering leadership tools that have been verified for validity and reliability, so that they can be applied to Korean nursing organizations. The aim of this study was to develop the Korean version of Empowering Leadership Questionnaire (K-ELQ) and to examine its' psychometric properties.

Methods

Translation of the K-ELQ was validated through forward-backward translation. Participants were 322 staff nurses working in four general hospitals in South Korea. To test reliability and validity, content validity index, Cronbach's alpha, Pearson's correlation, confirmatory factor analysis were used.

Results

The K-ELQ consisted of 34 items to evaluate empowering leadership of nursing managers. Construct validity of K-ELQ was verified by confirmatory factor analysis (CMIN/DF=2.72, Root Mean square Residual=0.03, Goodness of Fit Index=0.91, Normal Fit Index=0.87). Cronbach's alpha was 0.98. Criterion validity compared to the psychological empowerment of nurses showed significant correlation (r=0.19, P=0.001).

Conclusions

The K-ELQ is an appropriate instrument to measure empowering leadership of nursing managers. Further studies are needed to utilize K-ELQ in leadership education and to identify related factors of empowering leadership.

Keywords: Power, Leadership, Validation studies, Nurses

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Table 1

General characteristics of participants (n=322)

Values are presented as mean±standard deviation or number (%).

Table 2

Model fitness test results

Abbreviations: CMIN/DF, x²/df; RMR, root mean square residual; GFI, goodness of fit index; AGFI, adjusted goodness of fit index; NFI, normal fit index; CFI, comparative fit index.

Table 3

Model fit indices for K-ELQ subscales from confirmatory factor analysis

Abbreviations: K-ELQ, Korean version of Empowering Leadership Questionnaire; RMR, root mean square residual; GFI, goodness of fit index; AGFI, adjusted goodness of fit index; NFI, normal fit index; CFI, comparative fit index.

Table 4

Correlations between empowering leadership and psychological empowerment

Table 5

Reliability coefficients for K-ELQ sub-scales

Abbreviations: K-ELQ, Korean version of Empowering Leadership Questionnaire; SD, standard deviation.