Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to discuss recent criticism related to partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).
Design/methodology/approach – Using a combination of literature reviews, empirical examples, and simulation evidence, this research demonstrates that critical accounts of PLS-SEM paint an overly negative picture of PLS-SEM’s capabilities. Findings – Criticisms of PLS-SEM often generalize from boundary conditions with little practical relevance to the method’s general performance, and disregard the metrics and analyses (e.g., Type I error assessment) that are important when assessing the method’s efficacy.
© Joe F. Hair, Marko Sarstedt, Christian M. Ringle, Pratyush N. Sharma and Benjamin D. Liengaard.
Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http:// creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode The authors thank Jan-Michael Becker (BI Norwegian Business School, Norway) for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. In the process of writing this manuscript, the authors have used DeepL and ChatGPT to enhance its readability and language quality. The authors
thoroughly examined the linguistic modifications made by these tools. In addition, a professional proofreader helped to correct linguistic problems. Nevertheless, the authors bear full responsibility
for the content of the publication. Some analyses in this article use the SmartPLS statistical software (www.smartpls.com/). Christian M. Ringle acknowledges that he has a financial interest in SmartPLS.