25 years of higher-order confirmatory factor analysis in the organizational sciences: A critical review and development of reporting recommendations

We discuss how confirmatory factor analysis results should be used to examine potential higher-order constructs and advocate that researchers present five types of evidence, which are as follows: (1) the ability of the higher-order model to reproduce the observed covariation among manifest variables; (2) the ability of the higher-order model to reproduce the observed covariation among manifest variables better than more parsimonious alternative models—and no less well than less parsimonious alternative models; (3) the ability of the higher-order model to reproduce the observed covariation among lower-order factors; (4) the ability of the higher-order factor to explain variation in lower-order factors; and (5) the ability of the higher-order factor to explain variation in manifest variables. We illustrate how this type of evidence could be presented with a worked example and contrast our recommendations with the manner in which higher-order confirmatory factor analysis has been used in the organizational sciences over the past 25 years to support claims regarding higher-order constructs such as core self-evaluations and transformational leadership. Our review shows that a substantial proportion of the 44 examined articles failed to present enough evidence to allow readers to understand the size and importance of higher-order factors.