Modeling Multidimensionality in Hospitality and Tourism Research: Exploratory Higher-Order Factor Analysis

The hospitality and tourism discipline has been criticized for often taking a lackadaisical approach to the modeling of latent phenomena. Research on scale development has been found to lack transparency and/or to omit important methodological steps, thus calling into question the validity and reliability of the existing scales. To address these issues, there is a need for more research that emphasizes measurement issues and provides methodological guidance to hospitality scholars interested in scale development. Given the multidimensional nature of most phenomena and the complexity of human behavior, this study seeks to provide researchers, within and outside the field, with a guide to exploratory higher-order factor analyses. An empirical example of the recommended practices is provided using data collected from a sample of destination marketing organization (DMO) executives.