Organizational Systems Questionnaire (OSQ) Validity Study

Marriage and family therapists (MFTs), who are trained in systems theory and consult with complex and difficult systems (e.g., couples and families), are uniquely suited to both assess and intervene in broader organizational systems. However, MFTs are in need of more systemically designed assessment tools to guide and inform their interventions with organizational systems. This study examined the construct and concurrent validity of the Organizational Systems Questionnaire (OSQ). The OSQ is designed to use a systemic framework to measure the construct of organizational functioning. Participants were simultaneously administered the Abridged Job Description Index, Organizational Commitment Questionnaire, Stress in General, and Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire scales along with the OSQ. The OSQ demonstrated good construct validity, factor analysis indicates it is measuring one global factor of organizational functioning, reliability was strong (alpha = 0.91), and it showed high levels of internal consistency. The OSQ also demonstrated positive concurrent validity with acceptable levels of correlation with the other organizational measures. Overall, the OSQ was found to be a useful and psychometrically sound single-factor measure of organizational functioning.