Indic Religiosity Scale: developing and validating an Indian religiosity scale

ABSTRACT

The religiosity of one of the world’s most populous countries and of its people who constitute the largest diaspora in the world – India, has been ill-researched and ill-captured. A religiosity scale that is grounded in a theoretical understanding of the Indic religions – religions which originated in India – needs to be developed. This scale should demonstrate validity and reliability, besides being parsimonious. An Indic Religiosity Scale based on the commonalities of the major Indic religions – Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism – is developed and validated as a measure for cross-cultural studies on religiosity. A 15-item construct with five factors emerged as a valid and reliable measure of religiosity. The five factors include Way of Life; Belief in Rebirth, Karma and Destiny; Existence of Supreme Power; Importance of Prayer and Purposeful Life. The Indic Religiosity Scale (IRS) – with its parsimony and ease of use – can be used in multiple managerial contexts and organizational settings including cross-cultural settings, involving religiosity as a construct.

KEYWORDS:

• Buddhism
• Hinduism
• Indic Religions
• Indic Religiosity Scale (IRS)
• Jainism
• religiosity
• scale development
• scale validation
• Sikhism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tulsi Jayakumar

Dr. Tulsi Jayakumar is Professor of Economics and Chairperson, Family Managed Business at Bhavans S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai. An alumnus of the Delhi School of Economics, Dr. Jayakumar has an academic experience of 28 years. She has also been certified with the Certificate for Family Business Advising by the Family Firm Institute, Boston. Dr. Jayakumar’s research interests span various fields of Economics as also the area of Family Business. She writes extensively in the media and is a thought leader in her chosen areas. Her articles have been published in international journals of repute including the Journal of Business Strategy, Competitiveness Review and the South Asian Journal of Management. Dr. Jayakumar’s cases have been acclaimed as ‘Global Best-Selling’ and ‘Most Popular’ cases and are available on global case repositories - Harvard and Ivey.

Anshul Verma

Dr. Anshul Verma is working with SPJIMR, India as a Professor in the Finance area. He has done PhD in areas of Credit Risk Management and Banking. He is also an MBA in Finance and Masters in Applied Business Economics. He has written three books in the areas of Mergers and Acquisitions, Foreign Exchange Risk Management and Human values and Professional Ethics. He has also published research papers in reputed ABDC ranked journals. He has also guided three PhD scholars, two out of them were awarded best thesis award. He is interested in doing inter disciplinary research. He has done research in the areas of Impulsive Buying, Corporate Governance, Micro finance to name a few.