The Pathmox approach for PLS path modeling: Discovering which constructs differentiate segments

Abstract

The problem of heterogeneity represents a very important issue in the decision‐making process. Furthermore, it has become common practice in the context of marketing research to assume that different population parameters are possible depending on sociodemographic and psycho‐demographic variables such as age, gender, and social status. In recent decades, numerous approaches have been proposed with the aim of involving heterogeneity in the parameter estimation procedures. In partial least squares path modeling, the common practice consists of achieving a global measurement of the differences arising from heterogeneity. This leaves the analyst with the important task of detecting, a posteriori, which are the causal relationships (ie, path coefficients) that produce changes in the model. This is the case in Pathmox analysis, which solves the heterogeneity problem by building a binary tree to detect those segments of population that cause the heterogeneity. In this article, we propose extending the same Pathmox methodology to asses which particular endogenous equation of the structural model and which path coefficients are responsible of the difference.