Measuring Attitudes towards Slack Resources: Construct Development and Empirical Validation

The literature is deeply polarized regarding the role played by slack in organizations. Researchers debate whether organizational slack is a sure sign of inefficiency in the workplace or a necessary cost to enhance the competitiveness and adaptive capabilities of firms. While managers hold great importance in the accumulation and the use of slack resources, there is no existing assessment tool in the extant literature in order to examine how their attitudes toward organizational slack inform their conduct (i.e. shape their decisions and actions). In order to address this shortfall, we develop and validate the Attitudes Towards Slack Resources Questionnaire (ATSRQ). Reporting the findings of five empirical studies, we demonstrate that the resulting new instrument displays acceptable reliability (internal consistency and test-retest reliability), and construct (convergent and discriminant) and criterion-related validity.