Psychological ownership and thriving at work among civil servants: The moderating role of organizational identification
Abstract
Purpose. The study examined psychological ownership and thriving at work among civil servants: the moderating role of organizational identification. Study design. Participants in the study were four hundred and forty (440) employees drawn from civil service offices in Anambra state, Nigeria. They consist of 149 males and 291 females. Their ages ranged from 26 to 61 years with a mean age of 42 years and a standard deviation of 9.45. The sample was randomly selected from different units of the MDAs. The Psychological Ownership Scale developed by L. van Dyne and J. I. Pierce (2004), Organizational Identification Scale developed by Rubin, Palmgreen, and Sypher (2004), and the thriving at work scale developed by G. Spreitzer and K. Sutcliffe (2011) were the scales used in conducting the study. Regression analysis was used to establish the relationship between the demographic and major variables of interest in the present study. Findings. The results of the correlation analyses indicate that psychological ownership was significantly and positively related to thriving at work (r = .56, p < .001), and organizational identification was also significantly and positively related to thriving at work (r = .44, p < .001). Psychological ownership positively predicted thriving at work (β = .70; p < .001). Organizational identification positively predicted thriving at work (β = .12; p < .001). Organizational identification moderated the positive association between psychological ownership and thriving at work (β = .08; p < .001), given that the interaction effect between psychological ownership and organizational identification on thriving at work was significant. The following recommendations were made: organizations are encouraged to imbibe organizational identification in their workers, psychological ownership among workers is also found to be the bedrock of many organizations.
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