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The purpose of this paper, a critical reflection, is twofold. First, by comprehensively reviewing scale development procedures in hospitality research, a concerning lack of nomological validity testing is demonstrated. Second, the need for nomological validity testing is discussed and both conceptually and empirically reasoned.

This research systematically reviews scale development studies in three leading hospitality journals, including Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and International Journal of Hospitality Management over ten years (2012–2021) to analyze the completeness of scale development procedures. Specifically, the authors evaluate whether the reviewed studies engage in testing the nomological and predictive validity of the newly developed measures.

The results indicate a concerning gap in the current practices in hospitality research. Specifically, only 33.3% of the examined studies assess nomological validity. These findings collectively underscore the need for improving the comprehensiveness of scale development processes in hospitality research.

The study offers important implications for hospitality researchers. The paper provides an extensive discussion on the importance and benefits of testing for nomological validity in scale development studies, contributing to the completeness and consistency of scale development procedures in the hospitality discipline.

This research critically assesses prevalent, and widely accepted, scale development procedures in hospitality research. This research empirically demonstrates the neglect of nomological validity issues in scale development practices in hospitality research. Scale development is an essential scientific practice used to create a research instrument in a field of study, improving our understanding of a specific phenomenon and contributing to knowledge creation. Considering the significance of scale development in advancing the field of hospitality research, the validation procedures involved in the scale development processes are of utmost importance and should be thoroughly applied.

Research serves to elucidate and tackle real-world issues (e.g. capitalizing opportunities and solving problems). Critical to research is the concept of validity, which gauges the extent to which research is adequate and appropriate in representing what it intends to measure and test. In this vein, this article aims to present a typology of validity to aid researchers in this endeavor.

Employing a synthesis approach informed by the 3Es of expertise, experience, and exposure, this article maintains a sharp focus on delineating the concept of validity and presenting its typology.

This article emphasizes the importance of validity and explains how and when different types of validity can be established. First and foremost, content validity and face validity are prerequisites assessed before data collection, whereas convergent validity and discriminant validity come into play during the evaluation of the measurement model post-data collection, while nomological validity and predictive validity are crucial in the evaluation of the structural model following the evaluation of the measurement model. Additionally, content, face, convergent and discriminant validity contribute to construct validity as they pertain to concept(s), while nomological and predictive validity contribute to criterion validity as they relate to relationship(s). Last but not least, content and face validity are established by humans, thereby contributing to the assessment of substantive significance, whereas convergent, discriminant, nomological and predictive validity are established by statistics, thereby contributing to the assessment of statistical significance.

This article contributes to a deeper understanding of validity’s multifaceted nature in research, providing a practical guide for its application across various research stages.

The purpose of this study was to develop a measurement instrument for organizational learning capability (OLC) in a Chinese management context. Previous research has indicated a need for measurement instruments with proven ecological validity in China, because the learning capability of organizations is influenced by the organization’s external environment.

The authors followed a consequent inductive procedure from item sampling through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and nomological validation. The initial part sampled relevant descriptors from a diverse sample of 159 employees from heterogeneous backgrounds in China. After sorting by an expert panel, EFA of data from a sample of 161 executive students yielded a three-dimensional construct comprising knowledge acquisition, knowledge sharing and knowledge utilization. These three constructs were again tested in CFA using a sample of 357 employees from five companies.

The findings across the three samples resulted in a three-dimensional measurement scale that is called as the organizational learning capability questionnaire (OLCQ). The OLCQ displayed high internal consistency, reliability and nomological validity.

This focus of this study has only been to establish a measurement instrument that allows indigenous research on organizational learning in China. The approach was statistically driven grounded approach, not a theoretical assumption of learning mechanisms special to the Chinese culture. Further research is needed to estimate how this approach yields results that are different from other cultures or the extent to which our findings can be explained by features of the Chinese culture or business environment.

This study offers a practical measurement instrument to assess practical and scientific problems of organizational learning in China.

The work here emphasizes the necessity of a knowledge sharing community for organizational learning to appear. It addresses a call for more indigenous Chinese management research.

The authors provide a measurement instrument for OLC with proven ecological validity and with promising consequences for research and practice in China. The instrument is empirically grounded in the practices and behaviors of Chinese managers, avoiding biases that stem from previously identified shortcomings in cross-cultural management research. To the knowledge, it is the first of its kind and a contribution to a call for indigenous management theories with contextual validity.

This study aims to verify whether a nomological framework of antecedents and postcedents to satisfaction is valid and reliable in both purchase and sales business relationships.

In this study snowball sampling was used to identify relevant purchase and sales managers to collect data from two cross-industrial samples in Taiwan pertaining to purchase and sales business relationships.

The results display the validity and reliability of the nomological framework in both purchase and sales business relationships.

This study verifies the results in previous studies based on purchase business relationships and that the framework also appears to be valid and reliable in sales business relationships.

This study provides purchase and sales managers with insights to assess both their firms' inbound and outbound business relationships in purchases and sales.

This study creates a connection between purchase and sales business literature offering opportunities for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to replicate and refine Parasuraman's 36‐item technology readiness index (TRI) across contexts and cultures to enhance its applicability and generalizability for both researchers and practitioners.

Based on psychometric procedures of scale development, four separate research phases, each one building on the previous, are performed using several samples. Measurement invariance analyses are performed across demographics, industries, and cultures to ascertain the stability of the refined versus the original scale.

A refined 16‐item TRI scale demonstrates sound psychometric properties based on findings from various reliability and validity tests, as well as scale replications employing several samples. The four dimensions remain stable across techniques and samples, while the utility of the refined scale increases due to ease of application. Measurement invariance analyses across demographic groups, industries, and cultures provide further support for the superior stability of the refined TRI.

Assessment of TRI across different contexts and cultures enhances validity, utility, and generalizability by reducing the number of items, building a nomological network, and verifying stability.

Service firms should pay more attention to measurement of customers' technology readiness. For both researchers and practitioners, the refined 16‐item scale benefits from reduced complexity and enhanced utility of TRI across contexts and cultures. Service managers will find the refined TRI less complicated and easier to apply in customer surveys, which greatly benefits service firms attempting to better understand customers' TR when implementing self‐service technologies.

Replication and cross‐validation of new concepts play a valuable role in determining the scope and limit of empirical research findings; they allow researchers to demonstrate how broadly and in what circumstances such concepts can be used. While Parasuraman calls for studies to assess the generalizability of the TRI scale, the current lack of support for TRI's generalizability is an important gap that needs to be addressed. The current study fills that gap, increasing the applicability and generalizability of the TRI scale through refinement, replication and validation across several samples, contexts, and cultures.

The purposes of this study were twofold: (1) to develop a scale for measuring consumers' perceived problems of finding a good fit (PFGF) and (2) to provide evidence of several types of scale validities including nomological validity through examining the relationship between PFGF and body esteem based on attribution theory.

Scale development took place in three steps: (1) An initial pool of items was generated based on a previous study; (2) preliminary quantitative tests of reliability and validity of items were performed, including confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs); and (3) final scale validation through a discriminant and nomological validity test was conducted using CFA and the structural equation model (SEM). CFAs and SEM with the mediation effect were performed using Preacher and Hayes' (2008) bootstrap procedure in Mplus.

Of the 20 items (four items for physical, eight items for aesthetic and eight items for functional) generated in Step 1, a total of 14 items (four items for physical, five items for aesthetic and five items for functional) were remained through preliminary tests of reliability and validity of the scale in Step 2. In Step 3, the 14 items were finalized and validated through testing the hypothesized mediating effect of internal attribution of fit problems between the PFGF scale and the measures of body esteem. The results of consumers' internal causal attribution process of fit problems supported attribution theory.

The study contributes to understanding consumer fit perceptions by developing a scale to assess PFGF that may be a key factor influencing multiple apparel shopping behaviors. The multidimensional scale of perceived PFGF should be useful to provide solutions to PFGF based on information from customers. Better understanding of perceived PFGF will ultimately increase consumer satisfaction with apparel.

Understanding people’s intentions to be an internet entrepreneur is an important issue for educators, academics and practitioners. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a scale to measure internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

Based on an analysis of 356 responses, a scale of internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy is validated in accordance with established scale development procedures.

The internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy scale has 16 items under three factors (i.e. leadership, technology utilization and internet marketing and e-commerce). The scale demonstrated adequate convergent validity, discriminant validity and criterion-related validity. Nomological validity was established by the positive correlation between the scale and, respectively, internet entrepreneurship knowledge and entrepreneurial intention.

This study is a pioneering effort to develop and validate a scale to measure internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The results of this study are helpful to researchers in building internet entrepreneurship theories and to educators in assessing and promoting individuals’ internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy and behavior.

Inspired by objective hermeneutics (Oevermann, 1984, 1996, 1999; Oevermann et al., 1979; Weller, 2010; Wohrab-Sahr, 2003) and qualitative validation (Adcock and Collier, 2001; Martis, 2006; Maxwell, 1992), the authors present this essay with the aim of proposing an objective hermeneutic approach to qualitative validation.

In order to develop this approach, the authors consider the contributions of Martis (2006) and Maxwell (1992) about theoretical–empirical validity, Adcock and Collier's propositions (2001) regarding the conceptualization and evaluation of phenomena through specific levels, tasks and stages of validation and the principles of objective hermeneutic interpretation proposed by Wohlrab-Sahr (2003).

Three main contributions are considered: theoretical–empirical validity (Martis, 2006; Maxwell, 1992); levels of validation – theoretical framework, systematized concept, indicators and results (Adcock and Collier, 2001); stages of validation – content validity, convergent validity and nomological validity (Adcock and Collier, 2001); and principles of objective hermeneutic interpretation – sequential interpretation, mental–experimental explanation of possible interpretations, preservation rule, literal character of interpretation, totality, reflection about knowledge used in the analysis and group of interpreters (Wohrab-Sahr, 2003). These contributions were related to establishing a framework that illustrates the proposed objective hermeneutic approach to qualitative validation.

The authors intend to offer to the scope of organization studies an alternative for validation, so that the voices of the researched can be heard. Furthermore, the authors seek to guide researchers as to how to respect and protect what is heard, in order to avoid any invasion of others' discourse.

Contemporary organizations face challenges when they have an increasing need for trust, and yet there are decreasing opportunities for the development of interpersonal trust. Thus, the organizations cannot rely only on that and there is a need for complementary forms of organizational trust. Vanhala et al. (2011) developed the scale for measuring impersonal trust. The purpose of this study is to validate the scale in terms of discriminant and nomological validity as well as to test generalizability.

The validities and generalizability is tested on two samples from two industries in Finland: a forest company (411 respondents) and ICT company (304 respondents). Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling are used.

The scale represents both discriminant and nomological validity. Furthermore, the scale is generalizable in different industries.

A more holistic approach to organizational trust is proposed, and the scale for the impersonal element of the organizational trust is validated.

This paper validates the scale for the less studied impersonal element of organizational trust. To manage and develop organizational trust, all of its dimensions should be measured. The scale validated allows the measurement of the impersonal dimension, and the more refined measure also makes it possible to focus development efforts on certain operational areas.

The scale validated represents a step forward toward the reliable measurement of organizational trust. To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, this is the first study to show that previously developed scale is valid and generalizable.

LibQUAL is a service‐quality assessment instrument developed by the Association of Research Libraries in partnership with Texas A&M University Library and has been used in numerous institutions. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a Spanish version of the scale in terms of its structure, reliability, and validity.

Data were collected among students at a well‐known Mexican university. A total of 374 completed questionnaires were used in the analyses. Library service quality was measured using 22 items taken directly from the 2004 version of the LibQUAL scale. The back‐translation method was used to translate the original English version of LibQUAL into Spanish. Data were analysed using SPSS 16.0 and EQS 6.1 in the exploratory and confirmatory stages, respectively.

The study findings show that the Spanish version of the LibQUAL instrument actually consists of four dimensions: “affect of service”; “information access”; “personal control”; and “library as place”. The results support the reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and nomological validity of the proposed Spanish version of the scale.

This is the first study to empirically evaluate and find support for the convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity of a Spanish version of the LibQUAL scale.