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Dear all,

are there any experiences in path modeling without latent variables (structures directly between manifest variables)? Pros and Cons or other methods for this specific kind of models?

Looking forward to any remarks or ideas on this question.

Best Regards

Nadine

Hi Philipp,

thanks for your hint. If I understood correctly the post refers to the subject of including objective measures (or binary scaled variables). The manifest variables I want to analyse are scaled (5 point) items, so subjective measures.

My question is linked to the last part of the post: What about measuaring structures between the items directly not including latent variables (circles).

Hi Nadine,

Not necessarily binary variables. "Objective" just stands for anything that refers to a "hard" measure like turnover, number of patents etc. So no problem with 5-point-scales.

But anyway, I would also be highly interested in your initial question whether a structural model made up of single manifest variables instead of latent variables would do.

Best
Christoph

Hi,

with SEM covariance based you can look at
BOLLEN, Kenneth A. Structural Equations with latent variables. John Wiley & Sons, 1989. (cap. 4 = SEM with observed variables).

with SEM PLS based you can look at
http://www.hec.unige.ch/recherches_publ ... 002.25.pdf (they compared PLS regression and OLS regression).

Using Smartpls is easy, you just have to put each variable as a formative indicator of one LV, i. e.,

each LV will have just one formative indicator.

Best regards.

Hi all,

I agree. The only way to do this in SmartPLS is to create an LV (bubble) for each indicator (square). Since the loading and weight will always be 1, it doesn't even matter whether you choose a reflective or formative measurement mode.

However, if all your variables are measured by a single indicator, why even use PLS in the first place? Multiple regression in any statistics suite (e.g., SPSS) would do just fine...

Regards,
Stefan

Hi, just to inform...

MOROCO, João. Análise estatística com utilização do SPSS. Potugal, Edições Sílabo, 2003.

in pages 457-476 the path analysis using SPSS (only MV) is explained.

The model is calculated with multiple regression (one equation to each endogenous variable)

Best regards.