Insufficient discriminant validity: A comment on Bove, Pervan, Beatty, and Shiu (2009)

• Published in: Journal of business research Vol. 63; no. 3; pp. 324 - 327
• Main Author: Farrell, Andrew M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Elsevier Inc 01.03.2010; Elsevier; Elsevier Sequoia S.A
• Series: Journal of Business Research
• Subjects: Average variance extracted; Average variance extracted Discriminant validity Latent variable modeling; Citizenship; Correlation analysis; Customer services; Discriminant validity; Latent variable modeling; Organizational behavior; Studies; Validity; Latent variable modeling; Discriminant validity; Average variance extracted
• ISSN: 0148-2963; 1873-7978
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.05.003

Bove, Pervan, Beatty, and Shiu [Bove, LL, Pervan, SJ, Beatty, SE, Shiu, E. Service worker role in encouraging customer organizational citizenship behaviors. J Bus Res 2009;62(7):698–705.] develop and test a latent variable model of the role of service workers in encouraging customers' organizational citizenship behaviors. However, Bove et al. [Bove, LL, Pervan, SJ, Beatty, SE, Shiu, E. Service worker role in encouraging customer organizational citizenship behaviors. J Bus Res 2009;62(7):698–705.] claim support for hypothesized relationships between constructs that, due to insufficient discriminant validity regarding certain constructs, may be inaccurate. This research comment discusses what discriminant validity represents, procedures for establishing discriminant validity, and presents an example of inaccurate discriminant validity assessment based upon the work of Bove et al. [Bove, LL, Pervan, SJ, Beatty, SE, Shiu, E. Service worker role in encouraging customer organizational citizenship behaviors. J Bus Res 2009;62(7):698–705.]. Solutions to discriminant validity problems and a five-step procedure for assessing discriminant validity then conclude the paper. This comment hopes to motivate a review of discriminant validity issues and offers assistance to future researchers conducting latent variable analysis.