The problem of empirical redundancy of constructs in organizational research: An empirical investigation

    Authors

    H. Le; F. L. Schmidt; J. K. Harter;K. J. Lauver

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process.

    Keywords

    Construct proliferation; Construct empirical redundancy; Discriminant; validity; Job attitude; Measurement error correction; Disattenuation; Measurement artifacts; Reliability; Generalizability theory; Structural; equation modeling; JOB-SATISFACTION; MEASUREMENT ERROR; DISCRIMINANT VALIDATION; MEASUREMENT INVARIANCE; LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS; NORMATIVE COMMITMENT; WORK COMMITMENT; CAUSAL-MODELS; FIT INDEXES; ANTECEDENTS; Psychology, Applied; Management; Psychology, Social

    Abstract

    Construct empirical redundancy may be a major problem in organizational research today. In this paper, we explain and empirically illustrate a method for investigating this potential problem. We applied the method to examine the empirical redundancy of job satisfaction (JS) and organizational commitment (OC), two well-established organizational constructs. Analysis based on responses from a sample of 292 employees collected at two occasions showed that: (a) the construct-level correlation between JS and OC was very high (.91) and (b) both JS and OC are similarly related to positive affectivity and negative affectivity. These results suggest that the constructs may be empirically indistinguishable, despite their well-established conceptual distinction. These findings illustrate the problem of empirical redundancy of organizational constructs and provide a basis for a possible movement towards parsimony in the realm of constructs that could open the way to more rapid advances in knowledge in organizational research. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

    Volume

    112

    Issue/Number

    2

    Publication Date

    1-1-2010

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    112

    Last Page

    125

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000279135500003

    ISSN

    0749-5978

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