A structural equation analysis of employee work assessment tool for pharmaceutical marketing executives

Abstract

Globally, human capital management is an ongoing challenge for human resource managers. The identification and provision of essential work resources addressing both direct work and implied needs of employees is a continuous subject of interest in the management sciences. Therefore, the use of reliable, valid, and precise research instruments capable of assessing employee perceptions across various subgroups is of prime importance. Hence, the need to validate an instrument that satisfies the pre-conditions of factorial invariance is required. The purpose of the study was to determine the construct and invariance validity of a developed psychometric instrument across subgroups of pharmaceutical representatives in Nigeria. A cross-sectional, self-reported quantitative study that used an employee work assessment questionnaire administered to sales professionals (N=369) operating in Nigeria using random sampling. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling in AMOS, was used to develop model and test hypotheses. The mean weighted average method (MWA) was used to score the relative importance of indicators in the model. The measurement model satisfied model fit and reliability specifications. The invariance test parameters were adequate and invariant across gender, profession, and experience levels. Configural and metric invariance were obtained for the type of pharmaceutical company, with violations of scalar and metric invariance. The provision of work tools and adequate resources had the highest importance (MWA=3.53) followed by a need for impactful training to support work engagements (MWA=3.48). The application of the validated tool is a useful and statistically robust instrument for human resource managers to assess sales workforce perception.