Structural equation models using partial least squares: an example of the application of SmartPLS® in accounting research
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17524/repec.v10i3.1376Keywords:
Structural Equation Models, Minimal Least Squares, SmartPLSAbstract
In view of the Accounting academy’s increasing in the investigation of latent phenomena, researchers have used robust multivariate techniques. Although Structural Equation Models are frequently used in the international literature, however, the Accounting academy has made little use of the variant based on Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM), mostly due to lack of knowledge on the applicability and benefits of its use for Accounting research. Even if the PLS-SEM approach is regularly used in surveys, this method is appropriate to model complex relations with multiple relationships of dependence and independence between latent variables. In that sense, it is very useful for application in experiments and file data. In that sense, a literature review is presented of Accounting studies that used the PLS-SEM technique. Next, as no specific publications were observed that exemplified the application of the technique in Accounting, a PLS-SEM application is developed to encourage exploratory research by means of the software SmartPLS®, being particularly useful to graduate students. Therefore, the main contribution of this article is methodological, given its objective to clearly identify the guidelines for the appropriate use of PLS. By presenting an example of how to conduct an exploratory research using PLS-SEM, the intention is to contribute to researchers’ enhanced understanding of how to use and report on the technique in their research.References
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