• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.135-151
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• 2012

Traditionally in IS studies, the relationship between construct and its measurement items tends to be assumed to be reflective, meaning that the measurements are a reflection of the construct. In reality, however, the nature of the construct can be often formative, which means that its measurement items describe and define the construct rather than vice versa. The purpose of this study was to investigate theoretical and empirically-analysed differences between formative construct and reflective construct through comprehensive interdisciplinary literature review. And then on the basis of these differences, we intended to derive the rule of specifying whether the construct is formative or reflective and propose the methodology of testing the validity(content validity, construct validity, internal consistency and external construct) of formative construct and its measurements, differentiated from that in the case of reflective construct. Also, we suggested the concrete statistical testing methods such as VTT(Vanishing Tetrad Test), MIMIC(Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes) test and multi-collinearity test. In order to examine the applicability of this methodology to developing the constructs for performance evaluation of IS(Information Systems), we tried to identify its attribute(formative or reflective) and test the validity for the construct arbitrarily chosen among them which had been derived in our previous IS performance evaluation study by using this methodology. The result of the examination was that the methodology proposed in this study was significantly valid and effective in the area of IS performance evaluation.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.23-31
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• 2014

Entrepreneurship is considered as an important driver of economic growth, new firm creation, business rejuvenation& job creation. Over a period of time research within entrepreneurship literature has shifted from entrepreneur and his personality to his behavioral disposition. This has led to emergence of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) construct, which focuses on the process of entrepreneurship at firm level and it has emerged as the most widely researched area within entrepreneurship field. Though research in this field has been rigorous and exhaustive, still there have been concerns that researchers might have prematurely agreed on the composition, dimensionality, and nature of EO Construct. There has been considerable debate about whether EO Construct comprises three or five dimensions, about co-variance or independence of these dimensions and nature of construct whether formative or reflective. This article builds an argument about the multidimensional nature of EO construct comprising five dimensions, which vary independently and the fact that EO is better explained through formative construct rather than reflective one.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.527-535
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• 2016

In the information systems literature from Korea, there has not been much research on formative constructs. It is crucial to establish a proper relationship between constructs and indicators. In other words, it is fundamental to specify reflective or formative constructs in evaluating performance as closely as possible to reality, and in testing the appropriateness of a proper causal model. One purpose of this study is that, through a comprehensive literature review, reflective and formative indicators are accurately understood, and a proper specification and development methodology is applied to the information system evaluation field. In addition, this study provides a useful guideline for developing formative indicators for performance evaluation of informatization programs. The following activities were undertaken to achieve the aforementioned purposes. First, the basic theories and preceding study models on successful factors of informatization programs and performance evaluations were reviewed, and a comprehensive interdisciplinary literature review was conducted to better understand the formative constructs. Lastly, we provide a construct for performance evaluation of informatization programs and evaluation indicators, as well as guidelines for specifying them. Therefore, by systematically specifying proper constructs, future domestic researchers can develop better constructs for performance evaluation of informatization programs.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.61-95
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• 2007

Small-and-medium sized enterprises(SMEs) represent quite a large proportion of the industry as a whole in terms of the number of enterprises or employees. However researches on information system so far have focused on large companies, probably because SMEs were not so active in introducing information systems as larger enterprises. SMEs are now increasingly bringing in information systems such as ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning Systems) and some of the companies already entered the stage of ongoing use. Accordingly, researches should deal with the use of information systems by SME s operating under different conditions from large companies. This study examined factors and mechanism inducing faithful appropriation of information systems, in particular integrative systems such as ERP, in view of individuals` active feedback-seeking behavior. There are three factors expected to affect end users` feedback-seeking behavior for faithful appropriation of information systems. They are management support, peer IT champ support, and IT staff support. The main focus of the study is on how these factors affect feedback-seeking behavior and whether the feedback-seeking behavior plays the role of mediator for realizing faithful appropriation of information systems by end users. To examine the research model and the hypotheses, this study employed an empirical method based on a field survey. The survey used measurements mostly employed and verified by previous researches, while some of the measurements had gone through minor modifications for the purpose of the study. The survey respondents are individual employees of SMEs that have been using ERP for one year or longer. To prevent common method bias, Task-Technology Fit items used as the control variable were made to be answered by different respondents. In total, 127 pairs of valid questionnaires were collected and used for the analysis. The PLS(Partial Least Squares) approach to structural equation modeling(PLS-Graph v.3.0) was used as our data analysis strategy because of its ability to model both formative and reflective latent constructs under small-and medium-size samples. The analysis shows Reliability, Construct Validity and Discriminant Validity are appropriate. The path analysis results are as follows; first, the more there is peer IT champ support, the more the end user is likely to show feedback-seeking behavior(path-coefficient=0.230, t=2.28, p<0.05). In other words, if colleagues proficient in information system use recognize the importance of their help, pass on what they have found to be an effective way of using the system or correct others' misuse, ordinary end users will be able to seek feedback on the faithfulness of their appropriation of information system without hesitation, because they know the convenience of getting help. Second, management support encourages ordinary end users to seek more feedback(path-coefficient=0.271, t=3.06, p<0.01) by affecting the end users' perceived value of feedback(path-coefficient=0.401, t=6.01, p<0.01). Management support is far more influential than other factors that when the management of an SME well understands the benefit of ERP, promotes its faithful appropriation and pays attention to employees' satisfaction with the system, employees will make deliberate efforts for faithful appropriation of the system. However, the third factor, IT staff support was found not to be conducive to feedback-seeking behavior from end users(path-coefficient=0.174, t=1.83). This is partly attributable to the fundamental reason that there is little support for end users from IT staff in SMEs. Even when IT staff provides support, end users may find it less important than that from coworkers more familiar with the end users' job. Meanwhile, the more end users seek feedback and attempt to find ways of faithful appropriation of information systems, the more likely the users will be able to deploy the system according to the purpose the system was originally meant for(path-coefficient=0.35, t=2.88, p<0.01). Finally, the mediation effect analysis confirmed the mediation effect of feedback-seeking behavior. By confirming the mediation effect of feedback-seeking behavior, this study draws attention to the importance of feedback-seeking behavior that has long been overlooked in research about information system use. This study also explores the factors that promote feedback-seeking behavior which in result could affect end user`s faithful appropriation of information systems. In addition, this study provides insight about which inducements or resources SMEs should offer to promote individual users' feedback-seeking behavior when formal and sufficient support from IT staff or an outside information system provider is hardly expected. As the study results show, under the business environment of SMEs, help from skilled colleagues and the management plays a critical role. Therefore, SMEs should seriously consider how to utilize skilled peer information system users, while the management should pay keen attention to end users and support them to make the most of information systems.