Feeling capable in an Ubuntu way

  • In Western personnel psychology, control beliefs are a valued predictor for work-related outcomes. Yet, little is known about the culture-specific functioning of control in East Africa. Kenya, as an Ubuntu culture, is examined regarding control beliefs and contrasted with a German sample considered to represent an individualistic or Western culture. Responses to N=143 quantitative personality tests were attended with qualitative interviews on control beliefs (self-concept of ability, internality, powerful others, and chance). Content validity and factor structure of control beliefs were analyzed, followed by a Procrustean target rotation. Linear regression analyses were conducted to assess the predictability of job performance, achievement motivation, and well-being. Item comprehension, as well as factor structure of the four control aspects, differ between the two samples. In particular, the ‘powerful others’ control aspect diverges the most between the cultures. Linear regression analyses showed comparable, but not fully congruent predictability. Results indicate that an uncritical transfer of the control beliefs measure from one culture to another is inappropriate. Results fit in the picture of African Ubuntu philosophy, emphasizing social-relational aspects shaping control beliefs. More emic-etic based research is demanded concerning intra- and intercultural variability of control beliefs to depict a transcultural applicable and invariant model.

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Author:Michaela Heinecke-Müller, Claudia Quaiser-Pohl, Priscilla W. Kariuki, Josephine N. Arasa
URN:urn:nbn:de:kola-23207
Subtitle (English):Kenyan Comprehensions of Control Beliefs Compared with the German Perspective
Document Type:Article
Language:German
Date of completion:2022/04/03
Date of publication:2022/06/15
Publishing institution:Universität Koblenz, Universitätsbibliothek
Release Date:2022/06/15
Tag:Ubuntu; control beliefs; emic-etic; personnel psychology; transcultural
Volume (for the year ...):2022
Number of pages:24
Comment:
Erscheint zugleich:
Heinecke-Müller, Michaela, Quaiser-Pohl, Claudia, Kariuki, Priscilla W. and Arasa, Josephine N.. "Feeling capable in an Ubuntu way: Kenyan comprehensions of control beliefs compared with the German perspective" Open Psychology, vol. 4, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-83. https://doi.org/10.1515/psych-2022-0004
Institutes:Fachbereich 1 / Institut für Psychologie
Licence (German):License LogoEs gilt das deutsche Urheberrecht: § 53 UrhG