July 16, 2021
Evaluation of Sociopolitical Control Scales for Tourism
by Anthony Meoli
Abstract
Over the past few decades, shifts in sociopolitical and technological landscapes have elevated citizen participation and empowerment as fundamental elements of democratic decision-making in diverse settings. This trend holds true for the field of tourism as well. Consequently, studies in tourism have underscored the importance of citizen participation and empowerment within the host communities of tourism destinations.
Introduction
Empowerment is a process through which individuals enhance their control over their sociopolitical lives by strengthening their abilities, competencies, and self-efficacy in decision-making (Chiang & Jang, 2007; Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Perkins & Zimmerman, 1995; Speer & Peterson, 2000). It occurs when individuals gain increased command over their lives and actively participate in their primary and purposeful groups (Speer, Jackson, & Peterson, 2001; Tremblay & Gutberlet, 2010). This concept includes both individual and organizational empowerment. According to Zimmerman (1990), the former emphasizes individuals’ self-efficacy and control in sociopolitical contexts, while the latter highlights their cooperation within an organization. Empowerment is broadly related to one’s acts of empowering others, while psychological empowerment (PE) represents an individual’s internal state of being empowered (Menon, 2001).
Psychological empowerment is not merely an individual component because it includes active engagement in an individual’s community and a direct realization of one’s sociopolitical circumstances (Zimmerman, 2000). Therefore, PE is an appropriate measure of self-perception of competence in one’s sociopolitical environment. Zimmerman theorized that the three different components of PE, the interactional, behavioral, and intrapersonal, are interrelated. The interactional component of PE represents awareness and understanding of the political situation; the behavioral piece refers to purposive actions to affect outcomes; and the intrapersonal component includes individuals’ competence, efficacy, and mastery (Ohmer, 2007; Peterson, Lowe, et al., 2006). Among the three components of PE, the intrapersonal element is strongly indicative of individuals’ perceived capacity for controlling their sociopolitical contexts, more so than the other two dimensions (Leung, 2009).
During the last few decades, community psychologists have widely used the sociopolitical control scale (SPCS) to measure the intrapersonal component of PE. The SPCS measures how strongly an individual believes in his or her ability and efficacy in sociopolitical contexts (Itzhaky & York, 2003; Peterson, Lowe, Aquilino, & Schneider, 2005; Peterson, Speer, & Peterson, 2011; Smith & Propst, 2001; Zimmerman & Rapport, 1988; Zimmerman & Zahniser, 1991). The SPCS quantifies two primary dimensions of the intrapersonal component of psychological empowerment: leadership competence (LC) and policy control (PC). Policy control refers to the belief that can one can influence political circumstances while leadership competence addresses one’s sense of leadership efficacy (Peterson, Lowe, et al., 2006; Peterson, Speer, & Hughey, 2006; Zimmerman, 1990).
The SPCS has been employed as a measure to assess public policies in such diverse areas as natural resource decision-making (Smith & Propst, 2001), public health programs (Zimmerman, et al., 1999), ecological resilience (Ungar, 2004), youth programs (Diemer & Blustein, 2006), and social welfare (Markward, et al., 2006). Due to its robustness in diverse fields, scholars have found it worthwhile to improve the internal consistency of the SPCS. For example, Peterson and his colleagues (2006) demonstrated the scale’s hypothesized two-factor structure attained higher reliability compared to the previous model by rephrasing two negatively worded items so all statements were positively worded.
Tourism scholars have been interested in PE and the SPCS; however, they have mainly focused on the PE of employees in the tourism industry (Chiang & Jang, 2007; Hechanova, Alampay, & Franco, 2006). Also, tourism researchers in these studies utilized only a part of the SPCS. In other words, while tourism researchers have been interested in PE at the professional workplace level, psychologists have addressed PE at the level of community policies and programs.
Communities and local residents of tourist destinations play critical roles in sustainable and positive outcomes in tourism development. Many studies, therefore, have examined residents’ attitudes toward tourism development (Anderreck & Vogt, 2000; Ko & Stewart, 2002; Wang & Pfister, 2008; Woosnam, 2012). These studies emphasize residents’ perceptions and satisfaction with tourism development.
Scale Construction and Results
Generation of Scale Items
Measurement error associated with scales is often derived from poor questionnaire wording and construction (Dillman, Smyth, & Christian, 2009). Therefore, survey questions should use words that are consistent and valid measures of something the study wants to examine (Fowler, 1995). To minimize measurement error, scale items should be based on a literature review, consultation with experts, and the results of pre- or pilot tests. The scale items used in this study reflect intrapersonal components of PE in the context of tourism development. The sociopolitical control scale for tourism (SPCS-T) was generated from a comprehensive review of the literature related to the SPCS. A pool of items was then created from two focus groups of residents living in the research area. The process followed Churchill’s (1979) recommendation that individual and group interviews are applicable procedures in generating scale items (Hung, Sirakaya-Turk, & Ingram, 2011; Lankford & Howard, 1994; Mason & Cheyne, 2000; Woosnam & Norman, 2012). Additionally, a jury of five tourism experts in South Korea reviewed the set of 17 items to judge content validity and clarity of the rephrased items of the SPCS-T. The purpose of the expert panel was to determine whether the SPCS-T correctly reflected sociopolitical circumstances relevant to local tourism development of the study area, in order to avoid coverage error.
Table 2. Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis for the Initial Measurement Model
| Construct | Item | Description | Factor Loading | Variance (%) | α |
| Leadership Competence | 36.163 | ||||
| LC1 | I am often a leader in groups, | 0.816 | 0.937 | ||
| LC2 | I would prefer to be a leader rather than a follower. | 0.809 | 0.937 | ||
| LC3 | I would rather have a leadership role when I am involved in a group project. | 0.852 | 0.937 | ||
| LC4 | I can usually organize people to get things done. | 0.873 | 0.936 | ||
| LC5 | Other people usually follow my idea. | 0.844 | 0.936 | ||
| LC6 | I find it very easy to talk in front of a group. | 0.840 | 0.937 | ||
| LC7 | I like to work on solving a problem myself rather than wait and see if someone else will deal with it. | 0.808 | 0.937 | ||
| LC8 | I like trying new things that are challenging to me | 0.801 | 0.937 | ||
| Tourism Policy Control | 35.621 | ||||
| TPC1 | I enjoy political participation because I want to have as much say as possible in influencing the tourism department of my city. | 0.788 | 0.938 | ||
| TPC2 | A person like me can really understand what is going on with the tourism department of my city. | 0.852 | 0.937 | ||
| TPC3 | I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the important tourism development decision making processes in my city. | 0.828 | 0.937 | ||
| TPC4 | People like me are generally well qualified to participation in the tourism development decision making process in my city. | 0.786 | 0.936 | ||
| TPC5 | It makes a difference who I support for local tourism development because my support will represent my interest. | 0.823 | 0.936 | ||
| TPC6 | There are plenty of ways for people like me to have a say in what the local tourism development agency does. | 0.820 | 0.937 | ||
| TPC7 | It is important to me that I actively participate in local tourism development issues. | 0.785 | 0.936 | ||
| TPC8 | Most local tourism development agent officials in the city would listen to me. | 0.789 | 0.940 | ||
| TPC9 | Local tourism development is important to support. | 0.598 | 0.939 |
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