A Review of Measurement Equivalence in Organizational Research: What's Old, What's New, What's Next?

Abstract

The study of measurement equivalence has important implications for organizational research. Nonequivalence across groups or over time can affect the results of a study and the conclusions that are drawn from it. As a result, the review paper by Vandenberg & Lance (2000) has been highly cited and has played an important role in understanding the measurement of organizational constructs. However, that paper is now 20 years old, and a number of advances have been made in the application and interpretation of measurement equivalence (ME) since its publication. Therefore, the goal of the present paper is to provide an updated review of ME techniques that describes recent advances in testing for ME and proposes a taxonomy of potential sources of nonequivalence. Finally, we articulate recommendations for applying these newer methods and consider future directions for measurement equivalence research in the organizational literature.

Cultural differences in ethics and values during conflict resolution: A disentangling approach

“…The results of the mediation analyses are presented in Tables 5 and 6. Consistent with standard model fit guidelines (e.g., Hu and Bentler, 1999; Somaraju et al, 2022), the Relativism model (Figure 1(a)) fit the data well in American (χ 2 ( df ) = 3.05 (1), CFI = 0.99, SRMR = 0.02), Indian (χ 2 ( df ) = 5.73 (1), CFI = 0.99, SRMR = 0.02), and Chinese (χ 2 ( df ) = 2.04 (1), CFI = 0.99, SRMR = 0.02) samples. The same was true for the Idealism model (Figure 1(b)) across American (χ 2 ( df ) = 5.14 (1), CFI = 0.98, SRMR = 0.03), Indian (χ 2 ( df ) = 42.73 (4), CFI = 0.91, SRMR = 0.06), and Chinese (χ 2 ( df ) = 26.43 (1), CFI = 0.88, SRMR = 0.06) samples.…”

“…The analyses proceeded in a three-step fashion. First, measurement equivalence tests were performed following the recommendations of Somaraju et al (2022). Next, I examined the process models (Figure 1) through two multi-group mediation models (Preacher and Hayes, 2004).…”

“…Workplace conflicts cost organizations $359 billion dollars annually (Global, 2008) and often lead to increased stress, anxiety, frustration, and exhaustion among employees (De Dreu, 2000; Somaraju et al, 2022). Consequently, effective conflict resolution (CR) is essential to maintain organizational and employee health (Behfar et al, 2008; Eloibar et al, 2016).…”

Back-translation practices in organizational research: Avoiding loss in translation.

“…Moreover, optimism is warranted, not only because the gradual improvements in reporting that translations occurred over the last quarter century signal a recognition of the importance of these procedures, but also because the supplementary steps to strengthen the rigor of back-translation are becoming more accessible. Indeed, some qualitative methods can be executed quickly and at minimal cost (e.g., random-probe technique; Schuman, 1966), and advances in accessing online subject pools (e.g., MTurk, Prolific) and statistical software make quantitative tests easier to conduct (Foster et al, 2017; Somaraju et al, 2021).…”

Why Measurement Invariance is Not Necessary for Valid Group Comparisons

“…Frequently used grouping variables are demographic variables such as gender, social status or migration background, or different cultures or countries. In the psychometric literature, it is emphasized that the concept of measurement invariance (Flake et al, 2017;Meredith, 1993;Millsap, 2011;Molenaar & Borsboom, 2013;Somaraju et al, 2022;Vandenberg & Lance, 2000;Wicherts, 2016) plays a vital role in justifying valid comparisons of means and standard deviations of the latent factor across groups (e.g., Boer et al, 2018;D'Urso et al, 2022;Kankaraš & Moors, 2014). Measurement invariance assumes the existence of equal (i.e., invariant) item parameters in the factor model across groups.…”