SPECIFYING FORMATIVE CONSTRUCTS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH.

@article{2739449820071201, abstract = {While researchers go to great lengths to justify and prove theoretical links between constructs, the relationship between measurement items and constructs is often ignored. By default, the relationship between construct and item is assumed to be reflective, meaning that the measurement items are a reflection of the construct. Many times, though, the nature of the construct is not reflective, but rather formative. Formative constructs occur when the items describe and define the construct rather than vice versa. In this research, we examine whether formative constructs are indeed being mistaken for reflective constructs by information systems researchers. By examining complete volumes of MIS Quarterly and Information Systems Research over the last 3 years, we discovered that a significant number of articles have indeed misspecified formative constructs. For scientific results to be valid, we argue that researchers must properly specify formative constructs. This paper discusses the imp}, author = {Petter, Stacie and Straub, Detmar and Rai, Arun }, citeulike-article-id = {2207593}, journal = {MIS Quarterly}, keywords = {concepts, constructs, empirical\_evidence, is, methodology, misq, technology, validity}, number = {4}, posted-at = {2008-01-08 12:28:36}, priority = {3}, title = {SPECIFYING FORMATIVE CONSTRUCTS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH.}, url = {http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true\&db=a2h\&AN=27394498\&site=ehost-live\&scope=site}, volume = {31}, year = {20071201} }

TY - JOUR ID - 2739449820071201 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2207593 N2 - While researchers go to great lengths to justify and prove theoretical links between constructs, the relationship between measurement items and constructs is often ignored. By default, the relationship between construct and item is assumed to be reflective, meaning that the measurement items are a reflection of the construct. Many times, though, the nature of the construct is not reflective, but rather formative. Formative constructs occur when the items describe and define the construct rather than vice versa. In this research, we examine whether formative constructs are indeed being mistaken for reflective constructs by information systems researchers. By examining complete volumes of MIS Quarterly and Information Systems Research over the last 3 years, we discovered that a significant number of articles have indeed misspecified formative constructs. For scientific results to be valid, we argue that researchers must properly specify formative constructs. This paper discusses the imp IS - 4 JF - MIS Quarterly TI - SPECIFYING FORMATIVE CONSTRUCTS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH. VL - 31 KW - concepts KW - constructs KW - empirical_evidence KW - is KW - methodology KW - misq KW - technology KW - validity AU - Petter, Stacie AU - Straub, Detmar AU - Rai, Arun PY - 20071201/// UR - http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a2h&AN=27394498&site=ehost-live&scope=site ER -