Latent transition analysis in organizational psychology: A simplified “how to” guide by using an applied example

Abstract

Demands for more robust designs in organizational research have led to a steady increase in the number of longitudinal studies in organizational psychology (OP) journals. Similarly, the number and ways to analyze longitudinal data have also increased. In this paper, we adopt a relatively new and promising approach to help researchers analyze their longitudinal data in OP, namely latent transition analysis (LTA). We present a simplified guideline on LTA and discuss its role for OP researchers. Moreover, we demonstrate how organizational scholars can use this method with a practical example. In this example, we investigate (a) if there are qualitatively distinct subgroups of employees based on particular patterns of psychological capital (PsyCap) dimensions (i.e., efficacy, hope, resilience, and optimism), (b) if employees stay in these subgroups or transition to other groups over time, and finally, (c) if leader-member exchange (LMX) is associated with this transition. We use LTA to examine these steps in a German sample (N = 180).

Perceived work stressors and the transition to burnout among nurses in response to the pandemic: implications for healthcare organizations

“…First, MBI data were analyzed separately at each time point to decide the number of profiles to extract. Starting from two profiles, one profile at a time was added and retained if all the following criteria were satisfied: (i) its addition improved the model fit according to a bootstrapped likelihood ratio test, (ii) in the resulting model no profile included <25 nurses, (iii) the entropy of the resulting model was >0.80, which is a standard threshold indicating that the identified profiles are clearly separated from the perspective of the posterior probabilities of classification, and (iv) based on content-related considerations, ie, whether the identified profiles hold theoretical value and can be conceptually distinguished from one another (35). Profiles were interpreted according to the mean scores of each dimension, as previously reported in the literature (36).…”

When a crisis hits, send in the psychologists? A latent transition analysis of help-seeking behavior among Swedish healthcare workers during the Covid-19 pandemic

“…Second, to assess how stable the help-seeking classes were across early and mid-pandemic, class similarity was tested using configural, structural, and distributional tests of similarity (Morin et al, 2020). Third, to analyze changes in help-seeking between early and mid-pandemic, transitions between the help-seeking classes over time were analyzed in a combined Latent Transition Analysis (LTA) model (citation omitted; Morin et al, 2020;Zyberaj et al, 2022). Finally, to address the second and third research questions, predictors and mental health covariates were added to the model using the manual three step procedure (Morin et al, 2020).…”