Construct Development and Validation in Three Practical Steps: Recommendations for Reviewers, Editors, and Authors

Abstract

We review contemporary best practice for developing and validating measures of constructs in the organizational sciences. The three basic steps in scale development are: (a) construct definition, (b) choosing operationalizations that match the construct definition, and (c) obtaining empirical evidence to confirm construct validity. While summarizing this 3-step process [i.e., Define-Operationalize-Confirm], we address many issues in establishing construct validity and provide a checklist for journal reviewers and authors when evaluating the validity of measures used in organizational research. Among other points, we pay special attention to construct conceptualization, acknowledging existing constructs, improving existing measures, multidimensional constructs, macro-level constructs, and the need for independent samples to confirm construct validity and measurement equivalence across subpopulations.