Is formative measurement really measurement? Reply to Bollen (2007) and Bagozzi (2007).

Abstract

R. D. Howell, E. Breivik, and J. B. Wilcox (2007) examined the use of formative measurement models in theory testing in the social sciences. K. A. Bollen (2007) and R. P. Bagozzi (2007) have provided comments on this work. In this article, the authors reply to the commentators and suggest that the conclusions reached in the original article and the basis for those conclusions remain sound. They address the issue of misspecification raised by Bollen (2007) and the alternative to their realist philosophy of measurement offered by Bagozzi (2007). They conclude that misspecification as construed by Bollen (2007) will typically be undetectable in practice and cannot be distinguished from interpretational confounding. This can result in substantively different constructs retaining the same name from study to study, hindering the accumulation of knowledge. They further conclude that traditional reflective measurement is a better option for researchers in theory testing.