Measurement and modeling practices in business research – problems and solutions

Main funder

Funder's project number: 311309

Funds granted by main funder (€)

Funding program

Project timetable

Project start date: 01/09/2017

Project end date: 31/12/2019

Summary

Research in social sciences relies heavily on quantitative research, where theories are tested with statistical analyses. To do this, researchers constantly develop new analysis techniques. However, due to the social nature of these endeavors, failures are unavoidable sometimes leading to adoption of questionable methods or practices. The project contributes to two heated methodological discussions about formative measurement and partial least squares path modelling, both of which have surged in popularity but at the same time face increasing criticism from methodologists, including the principal investigator. The project contributes to the debate by 1) studying when (if ever) these techniques are viable modeling approaches in business research social sciences more generally, 2) by proposing alternative modeling approaches for the scenarios where these two techniques have been previously used, and 3) by releasing software components to support the first two objectives.

Principal Investigator

Primary responsible unit

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