Multiple Mediation: Intepretation of sig. total indirect effect with insig. specific indirect effects

Questions about the implementation and application of the PLS-SEM method, that are not related to the usage of the SmartPLS software.
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fkreitne
PLS Junior User
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2019 8:13 am
Real name and title: Fabian Kreitner

Multiple Mediation: Intepretation of sig. total indirect effect with insig. specific indirect effects

Post by fkreitne »

Hi together,

I am trying to conduct a multiple mediation analysis and hhave now the result of a significant total indirect effect but only insignificant specific indirect effects for all mediators. I don't know how to interpret these results. According to Carrión, Nitzl and Roldán (2017) in "Partial Least Squares Path Modeling", a mediator effect only occurs if one of the specific indirect effects is significant in a multi mediator model. But i don't know how i should interpret the significant total indirect effect. Any ideas?

Best regards
Fabian
jmbecker
SmartPLS Developer
Posts: 1281
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 11:09 am
Real name and title: Dr. Jan-Michael Becker

Re: Multiple Mediation: Intepretation of sig. total indirect effect with insig. specific indirect effects

Post by jmbecker »

It is an indication that there seems to be some form of mediation via your mediators in addition to the direct effect.
However, you cannot establish mediation via any of your particular mediators. Individual mediators seem to have only very weak (or no) effects. Currently you cannot tell likely because you have not sufficient enough sample size to find the small effect sizes to become significant. What is your sample size?
Dr. Jan-Michael Becker, BI Norwegian Business School, SmartPLS Developer
Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan_Michael_Becker
GoogleScholar: http://scholar.google.de/citations?user ... AAAJ&hl=de
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