Abstract
Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer’s (2001) paper on formative index construction in the Journal of Marketing Research changed the perspective of many marketing researchers on construct measurement. Since 2001, a significant stream of literature has developed which explores the extent to which existing reflective measures should be specified as formative. This work raises the possibility of significant negative consequences arising from the so-called ‘incorrect’ specification of measures as reflective when they should be modeled as formative. For example, Jarvis, MacKenzie, and Podsakoff (2003, p. 212) suggest that if a formative measure is specified as reflective, “the structural parameter estimates within that model [may] exhibit very substantial biases that would result in erroneous inferences.” This paper examines the evidence for such claims, first by considering the nature of validity, then by conducting a simulation analysis of the effects of reflective treatment of formative indicators. The results demonstrate that despite their conceptual differences, and the results reported in prior empirical literature, formative and reflective specifications may reveal very similar substantive relationships between constructs when the comparisons are made appropriately.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Academy of Marketing Science
About this paper
Cite this paper
Lee, N., Franke, G.R., Chang, W. (2015). Empirical Agreement Between Formative and Reflective Measurement Models: A Monte-Carlo Analysis. In: Robinson, Jr., L. (eds) Proceedings of the 2009 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference. Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10864-3_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10864-3_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-10863-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-10864-3
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsBusiness and Management (R0)