BRIDGING THE GAP: DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A SCALE FOR MEASURING ACCESS TO SOCIAL NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES

Abstract

The availability of social networks is crucial for the psychological, personal, and professional well-being of employees. It is also important for business growth. However, there is a lack of adequate measures that can fully describe the specific challenges and barriers that professionals experience when seeking meaningful social connections in different circumstances. The current study introduces the development and evaluation of the Availability of Social Networking Opportunities Scale (ASNOS). The scale was designed using a multi-phase approach that included reviewing the literature, getting advice from experts, coming up with items, validating the content, and testing the scale's psychometric properties on a sample of 350 working professionals aged 20 to 65. The 35-item survey was created to evaluate access to social networking opportunities covering five major dimensions: Organizational Readiness, Organizational Support, Personal Attributes, Availability of Online Networking Opportunities, and Availability of Offline/Physical Networking Opportunities. The scale was then reduced to 20 items consisting of five dimensions (Organizational Support & Infrastructure, Online Networking Opportunities, Physical Networking Opportunities, Digital Competence & Confidence, and Recognition & Knowledge Sharing Culture), demonstrating large internal consistency (alpha = 0.93). The newly developed scale fills an important gap in the literature to evaluate networking accessibility both in the digital and physical domains. The scale will also help in filling the knowledge gap on how access to professional networking opportunities depends upon both organizational factors and individual capabilities. The present study contributes to the increasing diversity of research into social capital and the effectiveness of networking in modern organizational and social settings.