THE IMPACT OF ECONOMIC LITERACY ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE
Keywords:
Human capital, Economic literacy, Organizational performance, Structural equation modelingAbstract
This study investigates the influence of lecturers’ economic literacy on their organizational performance either directly or indirectly via commitment, teamwork, knowledge/skills and attitude. The basic theoretical framework consists of lecturers’ economic literacy as independent variable and lecturers’ organizational performance as dependent variable while knowledge/skills, teamwork, attitude and commitment as intervening variables. Five main hypotheses and fifteen specific hypotheses were posited and tested. The study was based on a survey design and the time horizon was cross sectional with minimal researcher’s interference. The survey was carried out in 4 educational departments selected randomly from 7 clustered polytechnics out of 21 polytechnics in Malaysia. The final number of participants for this study was 28 departments. The sample size comprise of 200 respondents of the total population. The research hypotheses represented a conceptual model of performance. The model hypothesized that performance would be a function of human capital (economic literacy) and behavioral intervention is in the form of attitude, teamwork, skills/ knowledge and commitment. The study hypotheses were tested by employing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis method using AMOS 4 data fitting program which will better explain and postulate causal relationships. Besides, it examines more complex relationships and compares different models, nested and competing. This study is important in such a way that, it might help to promote the status of economic literacy of the respondents as well as improve their quality in rendering services to organization’s customers. It will also benefit the management of the organization’s system and other educational institutions’ system by identifying and improving its weaknesses for the betterment of its future performance. In conclusion, this study provides an insight and further understanding of the interrelationships among economic literacy, attitude, teamwork, skills/ knowledge, commitment and organizational performance, and hence allows practitioners to gain in depth knowledge of the impact of economic literacy.
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