Destruction of measurement scale through exploratory factor analysis in production and operations research

Abstract This paper aims to assess the use of Exploratory Factor Analysis by Production and Operations researchers, discussing the adequacy of its application. We analyzed 97 papers published between 2010 and 2015 in the Production and Operations area -- of which 61 and 36 were published in international and Brazilian journals, respectively. These papers contain 140 different applications of Factor Analysis. The research shows that confirmatory techniques are prevalent in international papers, as well as exploratory techniques to evaluate the problem of common method bias. Conversely, the papers in Brazilian journals typically use the exploratory technique in more traditional ways, such as to confirm the unidimensionality of the construct, or still to generate scores for use in other statistical techniques. Despite the textbooks for the AFE teaching focus exclusively on the use of AFE in the exploratory mode (to identify the number and meaning of the common factors), this use has been less frequent in published articles, both national and international. Moreover, the research shows that the inappropriate use of exploratory (rather than confirmatory) factor analysis in four Brazilian papers resulted in the “destruction of theory”. These findings suggest that national research have been using exploratory factor analysis in a questionable way; in this sense we propose scholars discuss this topic in order to disseminate the good practices.

摘要 本文旨在评估生产与运作领域研究者对探索性因子分析（Exploratory Factor Analysis）的使用情况，并探讨其应用的合理性。本文分析了2010年至2015年间发表于生产与运作领域的97篇学术论文，其中61篇刊载于国际期刊，36篇发表于巴西本土期刊，上述论文共包含140次不同的因子分析应用场景。研究显示，国际期刊论文以验证性因子分析（Confirmatory Factor Analysis）技术为主流，同时也有部分探索性因子分析用于共同方法偏差问题的检验。与之相反，巴西本土期刊刊载的论文则多以传统方式使用探索性因子分析，例如验证构念的单维度性，或是生成因子得分以供其他统计分析方法使用。尽管探索性因子分析（葡萄牙语缩写AFE）的教材仅聚焦于其探索性应用范式——即明确公共因子的数量与内涵——但无论巴西国内还是国际的已发表论文中，该类应用的占比均较低。此外，研究还发现，巴西的4篇论文错误地采用了探索性因子分析（而非验证性因子分析），最终引发了「理论解构」的后果。上述研究结果表明，巴西国内相关研究对探索性因子分析的使用方式存在诸多争议；据此，本文呼吁学界同仁围绕该主题展开讨论，以推广规范的应用实践。