The Influence of Common Method Variance in Marketing Research: Reanalysis of Past Studies Using a Marker Variable Technique
Despite criticisms regarding the effects of common method variance (CMV) in marketing research, there have been only a limited number of studies that directly assess the pervasiveness of CMV biases. This paper is an attempt to quantify the ubiquity of such effects in the marketing literature by employing a relatively new method called the marker variable technique (Lindell Whitney 2001) A marker variable is defined as a theoretically unrelated variable included in a study that can be used to estimate the effect of CMV. The technique is used as an analysis tool for assessing and controlling for CMV effects in published studies based on the reasoned action framework (Fishbein Ajzen 1975) The findings of this study show that after controlling for the effects of CMV, the majority of relationships between variables remain significant, even for relatively extreme values of CMV. Specifically, more than 80% of the 663 CMV adjusted correlations that were computed remained significant. This leads to the conclusion that the influence of CMV may not be as problematic as once thought.