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Use of Partial Least Squares Path Modeling Within and Across Business Disciplines

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Partial Least Squares Path Modeling

Abstract

The acceptance and application of PLS-PM vary dramatically across business disciplines. Some business disciplines, such as marketing and information systems, have used PLS-PM for decades. Other disciplines, such as accounting, have been slower at incorporating path models and PLS-PM in their research studies. The differences in adoption of PLS-PM across business disciplines can be confusing for authors interested in applying, using, and reporting the PLS-PM results in published research within their own discipline or across business disciplines. To address this concern, this chapter reviews the use and application of PLS-PM in Financial Times (FT50) journals. Our results identify the prevalence of PLS-PM use within and across business disciplines. This chapter reviews the rationales provided by authors for their use of PLS-PM within and across business disciplines, discusses questionable and appropriate rationales for PLS-PM, and offers guidance for authors intending to publish articles using PLS-PM.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Providing a full description of the PLS-PM method and its proper application and use is beyond the scope of this book chapter. We refer readers to the many books, journal articles, and websites explaining the PLS-PM methodology and the interpretation of its results.

  2. 2.

    In addition to non-parametric tests, some CB-SEM tools provide test statistics for non-normal data.

  3. 3.

    Refer to Henseler et al. (2014) for a detailed description of the differences in common factor and composite models.

  4. 4.

    Originally, confirmatory tetrad analysis was developed to discover additional causal relationships within the data in the context of CB-SEM (Glymour et al., 1987). Bollen and Ting (2000) later discussed how to use confirmatory tetrad analysis to test if variables in the model are causal (i.e., formative) or effect (i.e., reflective) indicators. Gudergan et al. (2008) further extended this work to PLS-PM by explaining how authors could explore and confirm the specification of the measurement model (i.e., formative vs. reflective items).

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Petter, S., Hadavi, Y. (2023). Use of Partial Least Squares Path Modeling Within and Across Business Disciplines. In: Latan, H., Hair, Jr., J.F., Noonan, R. (eds) Partial Least Squares Path Modeling. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37772-3_3

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