A Research Note Regarding the Development of the Consensus on Appropriation Scale

Measurement is perhaps the most difficult aspect of behavioral research. In a recent edition ofISR, a scale for consensus on appropriation was developed. Consensus on appropriation is one of three global constructs incorporated in adaptive structuration theory (Poole and DeSanctis 1990). The principal components analysis on the initial questionnaire revealed two factors with eigenvalues greater than one. While the methods used to develop the scale were thorough, the weaker factor was excluded from the rest of the analysis with little justification. We suggest that this finding has two possible explanations, multidimensionality or response bias. This research note suggests that in addition to the convergent and discriminant validity that Salisbury et al. (2002) provided for the consensus on appropriation scale, we may have an opportunity to further refine the measurement of this construct. By further exploring this principal component finding, consensus on appropriation may be better understood and measured.