ABSTRACT
In the past decade, organizational scholars have devoted considerable attention to an epistemological analysis of the constructs that populate their discipline. For example, Osigweh (1989) noted the lack of precision in many organization theory constructs and identified the phenomena of “concept traveling” and “concept stretching” as important issues. Law et al. (1998) presented a taxonomy of multidimensional constructs, classifying them by the way in which individual dimensions relate to the overall domain of the construct. For example, they pointed out that multidimensional constructs can conform to a latent model, in which case their dimensions are all manifestations of a more general underlying construct; an aggregate model, in which case individual dimensions sum to define the domain of the construct; or a profile model, in which case interactions between dimensions define specific parts of the construct domain. In a similar type of analysis, Morgeson and Hofmann (1999) described the structure and function of “collective constructs,” arguing that this type of construct emerges from interactions between members of a collectivity.
