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The set of compositional approaches to product space development is expanded to include confirmatory methods. Specifically, describes and compares product space development (perceptual mapping) via confirmatory factor analysis and partial least squares with the aid of an empirical example. Both of these procedures are widely used in causal or structural equation modelling. Since they tend to be confirmatory extensions to factor analysis and principal components analysis, the approaches are also well suited to the development of product spaces. Confirmatory approaches have several advantages over exploratory approaches including the incorporation of prior knowledge, the elimination of rotational indeterminacy, and the use of a wide variety of measurement tools to assess the reliability and validity of model results.

Constructing and evaluating behavioral science models is a complex process. Decisions must be made about which variables to include, which variables are related to each other, the functional forms of the relationships, and so on. The last 10 years have seen a substantial extension of the range of statistical tools available for use in the construction process. The progress in tool development has been accompanied by the publication of handbooks that introduce the methods in general terms (Arminger et al., 1995; Tinsley & Brown, 2000a). Each chapter in these handbooks cites a wide range of books and articles on specific analysis topics.

Considering the relevance of operational excellence as a business strategy, organizations are striving to improve themselves by adopting best practices and universally accepted principles through the process of continuous improvement, and these principles should be embedded in the culture of an organization. Organizations pursue to align themselves by continuously improving their processes by adopting scientifically proven techniques and cultural transformation throughout the organization. However, there is a lack of scientific instruments for the assessment of operational excellence. The objective of this study is to develop a scale for the assessment of practices of operational excellence principles in the organizations. Further reliability and validity of the developed scale are measured by testing the relationship between Human Resource Practices (HRP) and Operational Excellence (OE).

This study comprises quantitative design through exploratory and confirmatory studies and also includes qualitative analysis to develop a scale for the assessment of Operational Excellence (OE). Interviews from industry experts have been conducted to identify the major components for which organizations are striving for OE. Previous literature and excellence models, especially principles of the Shingo Operational Excellence Model (SOEM), have been reviewed and considered to finalize the scale items. Data were collected in two stages from both Telecommunication subsectors (Cellular Mobile Operators and Fixed Local Loop Operators) of Pakistan through the cross-sectional survey. In the first stage, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed on the sample of 611 respondents from both Cellular Mobile and Fixed Local Loop operators of Pakistan. In the second stage, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed on the sample of 423 respondents from the Fixed local loop operators. EFA was conducted by using SPSS version 23 to finalize the OE scale, and for confirmatory factor analysis, PLS-SEM using Smart PLS was used to confirm the reliability and validity of the OE Scale.

The results of EFA reveal that OE is a multidimensional construct with three dimensions and 23 items. The dimensions of the developed OE Scale explored in this study are cultural enablers (CE), continuous process improvement (CPI) and enterprise alignment (EA). The confirmatory factor analysis of OE confirmed the scale dimensionality, reliability and validity along with the hypothesis testing to measure the impact of antecedent variable HRP on OE.

Organizations pursue to improve and align their operational processes but usually unable to confirm the implementation of their desired objectives. Based on the developed OE scale, managers may assess the implementation of OE principles in their organizations. This research has been conducted in the telecommunication sector of Pakistan only, and the developed instrument needs to be further tested in other organizations.

The instrument developed in this study will help both researchers and practitioners to assess the principles of operational excellence in their organizations and enable them to design the strategies for improving organizational performance.

The results of this study will create awareness about the principles of operational excellence. The developed OE instrument will assist in identifying the gaps in organizational norms and values from the perspective of paying respect to every individual inside and outside the organization. OE instrument will be further helpful in the identification and assurance of health, safety, protection of the environment and community issues.

This study provides a reliable and validated scale for the scientific area of operation management and helps managers with the assessment of operational excellence in their organizations. This newly developed scale is also valid to test and use in different studies and industries by researchers and practitioners.

This study aims to find evidence of a possible relationship between three constructs that are generally investigated separately: entrepreneurial orientation, understood as entrepreneurship on the organizational level; marketing capability, seen as a highly competitive factor for the organization; and business performance, highlighted as a focus of the entire organization.

A survey-based quantitative approach was adopted with a cross-sectional temporal perspective. To arrive at results that can be compared, the study uses factor analysis and structural equations modeling techniques, with estimations of maximum likelihood for testing the quality of fit of the measures to the structural models, using SPSS 21 and AMOS 16 software. Data were collected at the 27th EXPOSUPER, which is a trade fair at which 35,000 visitors were present. The data collection instrument used is a questionnaire previously validated by Reis Neto et al. (2013a). The first section covers control variables chosen to profile the firms, the second contains entrepreneurial orientation variables, the third comprises marketing capability variables and the fourth section contains business performance variables, all using seven-point Likert response scales.

Tests of the entrepreneurial orientation measurement scale produced interesting results in this application within the retail supermarket industry. The results of exploratory factor analysis indicated that a scale with three dimensions was significant. The relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and marketing capability (H1) is positive, through the intermediate dimensions of innovation, proactiveness and risk-taking, used by firms’ management, contributing to their efforts to research and manage the market, to develop products and services and to offer better prices. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis showed that four of the scale’s dimensions of the marketing capability were significant: market research, market management, new product development and pricing. Comparison of these results with those of Reis Neto et al. (2013a) reveals a difference, as although their result, achieved using structural equations modeling, also had four factors; the promotion dimension was the most significant and absorbed the other variables. Despite these differences, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations modeling demonstrated that this construct met the minimum conditions for adequacy, where (H2), formulated to test the relationship between the marketing capability construct, was confirmed. The final construct analyzed in this study was business performance, initially suggested by González-Benito et al. (2009), and also used by Reis Neto et al. (2013a). They used the dimensions profitability, market value and market response, and in the present study, after exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations modeling, the results were identical to those authors results, in that (H3), formulated with the objective of testing the relationship between the entrepreneurial orientation construct and business performance, was confirmed, and although this was not the most robust of the relationships postulated in the three hypotheses, but was of lower significance.

Although this study has achieved its objective, one of the study’s limitations relates to the data collection instrument, which was subject to failures in terms of the number of variables to be analyzed in each dimension. This led to elimination of certain dimensions during the analyses. Another limitation is related to the method used in the study. When questionnaires are used as data collection instruments, respondents often may not understand the true meaning of questions, which could lead them to choose any option, thereby stripping the results of credibility. In view of this limitation, it is suggested that future researchers conduct qualitative studies, using the case study method, which could offer greater clarity and increase understanding of the results related to these subjects. Even considering that this study has certain limitations and restrictions affecting generalization, it is hoped that it raises new questions, interests and inspirations, improving and complementing understanding of this strong social and economic sector.

It is identify the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and marketing capability, since to date there is no evidence from studies confirming the existence of such a relationship. This statement was based on the results of a bibliographic survey conducted using the ProKnow-C, knowledge development process-constructivist methodology, in which, this originality was positive and significant, offering new studies from this point of view.

The overall purpose of the European Union‐funded Leadership Improvement for Student Achievement (LISA) project was to explore how leadership styles, as conceptualized in the developed dynamic holistic leadership framework, directly or indirectly affect student achievement at the lower secondary level of education in seven European countries. This paper seeks to address this issue.

In its methodological design the study is a mixture of research methods and collaborative action research shared by acting school leaders and researchers. A series of statistical analyses was carried out in order to gather evidence whether the data from the LISA project supported the initially developed holistic leadership theoretical framework. Consequently, first some descriptive statistics are introduced in order to acquaint the reader with the kind of data the survey used from the schoolteacher questionnaires. Further, some explanations are laid out with regard to the methodologies employed in order to analyze the data, such as the treatment of missing data and exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis structural equation models (SEM); then, a description of the main findings is offered through the analyses, which were conducted in order to predict school performance level from the relevant leadership style, followed by between‐countries comparisons and analyses. Finally, an in‐depth discussion and interpretations of the main findings – both integrative and concludive in nature – are offered.

The quantitative analyses stemming from confirmatory factor analysis and SEM identified five robust underlying dimensions of practised leadership styles across the seven participating European countries. Furthermore, the findings stemming from the logistic regression analyses pointed out clearly the complementary inter‐relationships of the main research questions of the study and analytical strands, especially with regard to the impact of certain intermediate variables on student achievement.

The expected results of this approach are predominantly assumed/seen as an enrichment in the grounding of hypothetical and theoretical ideas as well as professional development for both school principals and researchers. Such an equal contribution of school leaders and school leaders' organizations and researchers could probably provide a model for future professional development programs for both groups of professionals.

A new approach to investigate serendipitous knowledge discovery (SKD) of health information is developed and tested to evaluate the information flow-serendipitous knowledge discovery (IF-SKD) model. The purpose of this paper is to determine the degree to which IF-SKD reflects physicians’ information behaviour in a clinical setting and explore how the information system, Spark, designed to support physicians’ SKD, meets its goals.

The proposed pre-experimental study design employs an adapted version of the McCay-Peet’s (2013) and McCay-Peet et al.’s (2015) serendipitous digital environment (SDE) questionnaire research tool to address the complexity associated with defining the way in which SKD is understood and applied in system design. To test the IF-SKD model, the new data analysis approach combining confirmatory factor analysis, data imputation and Monte Carlo simulations was developed.

The piloting of the proposed novel analysis approach demonstrated that small sample information behaviour survey data can be meaningfully examined using a confirmatory factor analysis technique.

This method allows to improve the reliability in measuring SKD and the generalisability of findings.

This paper makes an original contribution to developing and refining methods and tools of research into information-system-supported serendipitous discovery of information by health providers.

The study and measurement of image especially in the Internet banking field has become an important tool to help the management of the banks operating on the Internet to make decisions. As there are no previous scales in existence to enable the image of this type of bank to be measured, our paper is centered on developing and proposing a reliable and valid scale that enables us to measure the corporate image of a bank in the context of the Internet. The results obtained show that an Internet bank's image is a multidimensional construct composed of its reputation and security as perceived by the consumer, as well as of the services offered and access to them. These results provide a management tool to measure the Internet bank's image. Similarly, the new scale shows in detail which aspects need to be acted on in order to improve the bank's image with its clients.

The Student Leadership Competencies Inventory consists of eight scales, each corresponding to its relevant leadership construct within the Student Leadership Competencies framework (Seemiller, 2013). Due to the increasing use of the framework and associated inventory in leadership development programs in higher education, we conducted a thorough analysis of the psychometric properties within each scale. Specifically, using a national dataset of university student responses, we analyzed internal reliability statistics, and conducted exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation and maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis for each of the eight scales. Our results suggested that all scales, overall, possess sufficient strength to be considered valid measures of the leadership constructs within the Inventory, with some notably high co-variances between certain sub-scale factors in several scales.

The study analyses psychometric features of the Grasha–Riechmann student learning style scale. It measures the instructional preferences of students attending different educational stages.

The scale was translated from English to Spanish. Content and face validity evidences were analysed. After that, construct validity evidences – exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, factorial invariance analysis – and internal consistency were examined. Data were collected from samples composed of high school and college students from Argentina.

The adapted version, a four-factor 12-item scale, suitable to be used in local students, measures four learning styles – competitive, independent, dependent and collaborative. The model showed a better fit when compared to rival models – three-factor and six-factor. Besides, the four-factor model verified its factorial invariance in high school and college students' groups composing the sample. The internal consistency indices were adequate for every dimension (ordinal α > 0.70).

Despite satisfactory results of the internal validity evidences and the internal consistency analysis, further studies should analyse external validity evidences – criterion and predictive evidences.

The adapted version of the scale is suitable to be used by teachers in order to examine learning preferences in their students. Such information will allow the adaptation of teaching methods regarding the actual students' needs.

The Grasha–Riechmann student learning style scale’s Argentinian adaptation is presented. It is a valid and reliable measure of learning styles suitable to be used in high school and college.

The aim of this paper is to examine the degree of how customer service management (CSM) affects perceived business performance measures (PBPM) in Malaysian banks and finance companies.

The aim was achieved through an empirical study involving a survey. Of 700 questionnaires sent out, 128 were returned. The dataset from the sample underwent series of statistical analyses, i.e. reliability test, factor analyses (exploratory and confirmatory) and structural equation modelling (SEM).

Factor analyses extracted two dimensions, i.e. CSM and perceived business performance. All related indicators manifested their constructs respectively. Although there were expectations where CSM would diverged into more dimensions via exploratory factor analysis (i.e. market research, customer assessment, customer satisfaction and customer relationship management), the results show that CSM were encapsulated as a single construct by respondents. The findings confirmed that CSM had significant association on PBPM, i.e. 0.83 standardised regression weights.

One limitation was the size of the sample. Although the permissible threshold of sample size was met, the research would not be jeopardized with larger sample size. Future research can entail foreign banks so that the results can be compared in contrast with the ones gathered in this paper.

The results can help bankers enhance their competitiveness with more emphasis on CSM through market research, customer satisfaction, customer assessment and handling of customer. These aspects are important key drivers towards successful implementation of CSM.

Although CSM is multi faceted, it was viewed by the respondents as a single construct. The paper empirically justified the effectiveness of CSM on PBPM. Bankers may find this paper useful as perceptual measures can be empirically substantiated using SEM.