Single item construct (formative vs. reflective)

[nilsa75]

Hi,

I'm using a single item construct (dependent variable) in my model. Does it make any difference if I model it as reflective or as formative?

I have an impression that there is only one item mathematically modeling it as reflective or as formative would be equivalent. Is this really the case, or is there a difference?

[Hengkov]

Hi Haslinda,
Please see article
Jarvis, C.B., Mackenzie, S.B.,and Podsakoff, P.M. 2003. “A critical review of construct indicators and measurement model misspecification in marketing and consumer research,” Journal of Consumer Research, (30:2), pp. 199–218.
for difference reflective or formative model.

But if you used single item construct (dependent variable) in your model = reflective model

Regards,
Hengky

[allenjia]

If you use formative, it will be harder for the link between dependent and independent variable to be significant, because the single indicator will account for a big part of the variance of dependent variable. Thus, reflective

[Diogenes]

Hi,

PLS-PM is “partial” in the sense that the measurement model is computed in one step and the structural model in another step of the iteration procedure.

Then, with just one indicator, it doesn’t matter if it is formative or reflective:
Formative --> measurement model computed as a simple regression
Reflective --> measurement model computed as a correlation
And the correlation = standardized regression coefficient = 1.0 --> LV = indicator

Best regards,

Bido