Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric validation of the Indonesian version of the behavioral integrity scale for organizational settings

Leadership integrity is crucial in collectivist and hierarchical societies, such as Indonesia, for fostering trust and achieving organizational success. In such a high-context culture, organizational leaders’ alignment between words and actions is highly valued. However, the availability of culturally adapted measures for assessing leaders’ behavioral integrity (BI) in this context remains limited, hindering both research and practice. This study focused on the translation and cultural adaptation of the Behavioral Integrity Scale (BIS), which was initially developed by Simons et al., into Indonesian, and the assessment of its reliability and validity. Data were collected through online and offline surveys involving employees of various industry sectors in Indonesia, yielding a total of 342 responses. The validation process included evaluation of convergent and discriminant validity, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), Content Validity Index (CVI), and Cronbach’s alpha. This study’s findings indicated that the Indonesian version of the BIS retained the original structure with minor cultural adjustments. The scale demonstrates acceptable content validity (I-CVI ≥ 0.78) and (S-CVI/Ave = 0.85). CFA results showed a good fit and supported the scale’s construct validity. Reliability was excellent with Cronbach’s Alpha (α = 0.903). In addition, convergent and discriminant validity analyses strengthened the scale’s construct validity. The Indonesian version of BIS demonstrated good psychometric properties and appeared suitable for assessing perceived behavioral integrity of leaders in organizational settings in Indonesia. In addition to its psychometric benefits, this scale addressed the need for culturally appropriate leadership integrity measurements. This study offered practical implications for leadership development and cross-cultural research.