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Measures are comparable if and only if measurement equivalence has been demonstrated. Although comparability and equivalence of measures are sometimes used interchangeably, we advocate a subtle but important difference in meaning. Comparability implies that measures from one group can be compared with measures from another group. It is a property of the measures, which is given or not. In particular, comparability presumes valid measures within each group compared. Measurement equivalence, by contrast, refers to the way measures are derived and estimated. It is intrinsically tied to the underlying theory of measurement. Thus, measurement equivalence cannot be dealt with in isolation. Its assessment has to be incorporated into the theoretical framework of measurement. Measurement equivalence is closely connected to construct validity for it refers to the way manifest indicators are related to the latent variable, within a particular culture and across different cultures. From this it follows that equivalence cannot, or should not, be treated as a separate issue but as a constitutive element of validity. A discussion of measurement equivalence without addressing validity would be incomplete.

Utilizing datasets of Ecuador, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico and Peru from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey from 2017 to 2018, this study aimed to develop and validate a profile indicating core workplace skills in developing countries.

DeVellis' guide of scale development navigated the development of the profile. Multiple techniques including item analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and multigroup confirmatory factor analysis were used on a sample of 7,166 participants to validate the profile of core workplace skills in developing countries.

A resultant five-dimensional profile with 18 items was developed: oral communication skills, reading skills, math skills, information and communication technology skills and learning skills. The estimates of composite reliability showed the profile was reliable. The validity estimates of the profile were obtained from several sources including content, convergent, discriminative and construct validity. The measurement invariance was also held for the profile.

Based on the researcher's knowledge, the study is the first attempt to develop a profile to indicate core workplace skills in developing countries. The profile theoretically framed the core workplace skills in developing countries and provides a new measure for identifying, evaluating and thus improving core workplace skills in developing countries for different stakeholders in the era of Education 4.0.

Prior research suggests that payment mechanisms are imbued with cues that affect purchase evaluation and future spending behavior. Credit cards are distinguished from other payment mechanisms as they elicit greater willingness to spend, prompt weaker recollections of past credit expenses and overvaluation of available funds – a phenomena the authors call as “credit card effect.” Little is known about the individuals’ differential exposure to the credit card effect. The purpose of this paper is to present a new concept and measure of susceptibility to the credit card misuse and indebtedness (SCCMI).

The study focussed on young credit card users (aged 18-25) from Malaysia, Singapore, and the UK as they represent varying levels of credit card issuance and consumer protection regulations. The authors conducted confirmatory factor analysis and invariance tests to assess the validity, reliability and parsimony of the proposed scale in the three countries. Further, the authors examined the prediction power of SCCMI on consumer tendency to become a revolving credit card debtor.

Results show that the SCCMI scale is valid, reliable and parsimonious across the multi-country context. The paper provided additional validity support through known-group comparison among various payers of credit card bills.

The convenience sampling used for the study is the main limitation. The findings bear important implications for more socially responsible marketing practice and better public policies in credit carder regulation for protecting young credit card users.

The new concept and measurement scale can be used for identifying the vulnerable individuals in credit card use, assisting consumer knowledge training, improving policies for credit card regulation, and helping credit card providers in socially responsible marketing practice.

The cross-country validity of the SCCMI scale provides a unique contribution for monitoring and auditing consumer vulnerability in credit card misuse in Asian and European market conditions.

SCCMI offers an original concept that is distinct from previous research in that SCCMI focusses solely on the state of likelihood to commit credit card abuse rather than the behavioral manifestations of credit card misuse. SCCMI provides a new tool for marketers and public policy makers for ethically responsible credit card marketing and regulation to protect youths’ benefits.

Employee dissatisfaction with merit pay is a long‐standing problem. This study introduces four explanatory constructs, based on decisional and interactional fairness notions, that describe how supervisors implement merit pay and predict merit pay satisfaction. Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses, applied to a sample of American employees (N = 415) and a sample of Venezuelan employees (N = 239), show that the five constructs introduced here are distinct from each other and that their measures generalize across countries (cultures and languages).

Research on international marketing usually involves comparing different groups of respondents. When using structural equation modeling (SEM), group comparisons can be misleading unless researchers establish the invariance of their measures. While methods have been proposed to analyze measurement invariance in common factor models, research lacks an approach in respect of composite models. The purpose of this paper is to present a novel three-step procedure to analyze the measurement invariance of composite models (MICOM) when using variance-based SEM, such as partial least squares (PLS) path modeling.

A simulation study allows us to assess the suitability of the MICOM procedure to analyze the measurement invariance in PLS applications.

The MICOM procedure appropriately identifies no, partial, and full measurement invariance.

The statistical power of the proposed tests requires further research, and researchers using the MICOM procedure should take potential type-II errors into account.

The research presents a novel procedure to assess the measurement invariance in the context of composite models. Researchers in international marketing and other disciplines need to conduct this kind of assessment before undertaking multigroup analyses. They can use MICOM procedure as a standard means to assess the measurement invariance.

The paper investigates the suitability of the Rasch model for establishing data equivalence. The results based on a real data set are contrasted with findings from standard procedures based on CFA methods.

Sinkovics et al.'s data on technophobia was used and re‐evaluated using both classical test theory (CTT) (multiple‐group structural equations modelling) and Rasch measurement theory.

Data equivalence in particular and measurement in general cannot be addressed without reference to theory. While both procedures can be considered best practice approaches within their respective theoretical foundation of measurement, the Rasch model provides some theoretical virtues. Measurement derived from data that fit the Rasch model seems to be approximated by classical procedures reasonably well. However, the reverse is not necessarily true.

The more widespread application of Rasch models would lead to a stronger justification of measurement, in particular, in cross‐cultural studies but also whenever measures of individual respondents are of interest.

Measurement models outside the framework of CTT are still scarce exceptions in marketing research.

Despite the recognition that citizens' perceptions of mega sport events' social impact is critical for the sustainable development of these events and host cities, most previous studies have not taken into consideration how these perceptions may change over time. This study examines citizens' social impact perceptions of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games before and after the event.

Data were collected amongst local residents of Rio de Janeiro pre- and post-event (n = 256). A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) analysed the psychometric properties of the proposed social impact constructs. Subsequently, a multigroup analysis and latent mean comparisons were conducted to test social impact perceptions pre- and post-event.

The multigroup CFA showed factorial stability of the social impact model in both periods, while the latent mean comparisons revealed significant differences in the dimensions of social experiences, city image and community pride enhancement, public infrastructures and social conflicts. Results indicated that the perception of positive impacts tends to increase, while perceived negative impacts decrease from pre- to post-event.

The social effects of hosting sport mega events result in a short-term change in attitudes towards the local community, leading to a better comprehension on how communities perceive the event's impact on their lives.

In a highly complex mega event such as the Olympic Games, any change may influence residents' perceptions. The findings of this study demonstrate the importance of residents for determining support or opposition in hosting the event, allowing a better understanding of the exchange effects.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the validity of community organisation as part of the systemic model. Based on the systemic model of community crime, it is perceived that community networks are negatively correlated with victimisation. The authors consider an alternative interpretation, suggesting that these conceptual relationships can run opposite to the directions shown in the systemic model. The crime rate itself may change residents’ perception of neighbouring behaviour and informal control.

This hypothesis is tested using a multigroup analysis of the community organisation across a sample of victims and non-victims in a Malaysian neighbourhood.

The authors find that property crime affects ethnic relations among the residents, where the non-victims perceived higher levels of ethnic relationships compared with the victims. The results show that configural and metric invariance are fully supported, while scalar and structural invariance were partially supported, suggesting that the items measured may be robust across cultures and that the factor loadings appeared to be equivalent across victims and non-victims. Non-victims perceived significantly higher informal control and closer ethnic relations than victims.

The paper provides a new direction of the systemic model, whereby victimisation could affect residents’ size of friendship networks and perception informal control.

Despite the abundance of research on work social support and work-family conflict, the generalizability of these relationships to immigrant and non-immigrant Hispanics is still unknown. Based on role and cultural theories, the purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical examination of these relationships within this growing yet understudied population.

Survey data were collected from a diverse sample of employed immigrant and non-immigrant Hispanics from a broad set of occupational groups within Miami, Florida (USA). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test hypotheses. Multi-group analyses were conducted to test for differences in model fit and parameter estimates between the immigrant and non-immigrant subgroups.

The hypothesized model fit the data well, with a significant positive relationship between perceived organizational social support and perceived supervisor social support, a significant negative relationship between perceived organizational social support and work-to-family conflict, and a significant negative relationship between perceived supervisor social support and family-to-work conflict. Multi-group SEM, which offered acceptable model fit, suggests that perceived organizational social support is associated with reduced work-family conflict for immigrant but not for non-immigrant Hispanics, and perceived supervisor social support is associated with reduced work-family conflict for non-immigrant but not for immigrant Hispanics.

Cross-sectional data do not allow for strong causal interpretations.

Perceived work social support is an important indicator of work-family conflict for both immigrant and non-immigrant Hispanics, although specific relationships can differ based on immigration status.

Few studies have investigated differences in work-family conflict between non-immigrant and immigrant Hispanics.

The present study sheds light on the role of strategic orientations (SOs) in explaining business growth. The purpose of this paper is to examine how different SOs, namely learning orientation, entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and brand orientation simultaneously affect business performance measured with brand performance, market performance and business growth in SME context and whether these effects vary across countries.

An extensive data set of 1,120 effective responses is collected from two European countries, namely Hungary, representing a post socialist rapidly growing market, and Finland with a stable, highly developed and competitive economy. A multigroup moderation analysis is conducted. Confirmatory factor analysis is used in testing measurement invariance, subsequently followed by structural equation modeling procedure used in testing research hypotheses developed on the basis of a literature review.

The results show that entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and brand orientation have a positive effect on business growth in SMEs in both Hungary and Finland through brand and market performance. With regard to learning orientation, a positive yet somewhat weak effect on growth is found only in the Hungarian sample. The moderation analysis reveals that country moderates several of the hypothesized paths from SOs to business performance.

Prior studies on SOs have mainly focussed on single orientations at any given time. However, researchers increasingly argue that many firms are better off if they build their strategies on multiple SOs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first empirical studies to address multiple (four) SOs in the same research model. Furthermore, little is known about if and how the performance effects of different SOs vary across countries.