IPMA negative importance

[alonsodossantos]

Hello, there is 3 open topic about negative importance in IPMA. But no one have reply.

I have a IPMA with negative importance. What that´s mean?? Does it make sense? How do I handle this?

Please, can someone reply this comment?

Thank you in advance.

[jmbecker]

Generally, negative importance makes sense, because the importance is based on the measurement and structural weights. If any of them is negative, you may have negative importance and the predictor is negatively related to your outcome. (You have to judge yourself if this makes sense in your specific situation.)
Hence, negative importance does not mean that it is very unimportant, but that it is (more or less) important but has a negative effect. To compare importance in absolute terms to the positive importances you may just switch the sign, but have to be careful with the interpretation and conclusions.

[j_terstriep]

Dear Prof. Becker,

To me negative importance of an exogenous LV (e.g. -0.35) indicates that a one point increase in the performance of the LV leads to a decrease in the endogenous LV's performance by -0.35. But what exactly does this mean for related management activities? Do not invest in such activities as they have a relative strong negative impact on the endogenous LV?

Many thanks in advance for your support.

Kind regards,
Judith

[jmbecker]

It always depends on the content domain of the predictor. You should be aware that investment sometimes also means decreasing a certain variables/construct.

For example, price has a negative relation to many outcome variables (e.g., Satisfaction, Purchase Intention, etc.). If you increase price, these things usually go down. Hence, negative importance.

The managerial conclusion would be:
Do not increase prices if you want to hold these measures stable.
Alternatively: decrease prices to improve these measures.

There is no universal answer to the question. It always depends on the specifics of your model.

[j_terstriep]

Dear Prof. Becker,

Thanks for your reply.

[j_terstriep]

To compare importance in absolute terms to the positive importances you may just switch the sign, but have to be careful with the interpretation and conclusions.

I am not sure what you mean by the above. In case I have a negative importance value (e.g. -0.3) I just use the value 0.3 for interpretation? Would this also mean that I would have to reverse the performance value (e.g. 100 - calculated performance = new value)?

Many thanks in advance for your support.

[jmbecker]

If you have two drivers with an importance of 0.3 and -0.3, then they are both equally important, but with oposing signs.