There are enduring misconceptions in the marketing and management literature about the potential biasing effects of Common Method Variance (CMV). One belief is that the biasing effect of CMV is of greater theoretical than practical importance; another belief is that if CMV is a potential problem, it can be easily identified with the Harman one-factor test. In this article, we show that both beliefs are ill founded and need correction. To demonstrate our key points with greater generality, we use analytical derivations rather than empirical simulations. First, we examine the effects of CMV on correlations between observed variables as a function of measure unreliability and the sign and size of the “true” trait correlation. We demonstrate that, for negative trait correlations, CMV leads to a substantial upward bias in observed correlations (i.e., observed correlations are less negative than the trait correlation), and under certain conditions observed correlations may even have the wrong sign (assuming that the method loadings are both positive or both negative). We also show that, for positive trait correlations, the downward bias due to measurement unreliability does not always mitigate the upward bias due to CMV (again assuming that the method loadings are either both positive or both negative). Importantly, our results indicate that the inflationary effect of CMV is larger at lower levels of (positive) trait correlations, whereas the deflationary effect of unreliability is larger at higher levels of trait correlations. Second, we demonstrate analytically the serious deficiencies of the popular Harman one-factor test for detecting common method variance and strongly recommend against its use in future research.

中文翻译：

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共同方法方差的偏差效应：一些说明

市场营销和管理文献中对共同方法差异 (CMV) 的潜在偏差影响存在长期误解。一种观点认为，CMV 的偏差效应在理论上比实际重要；另一种看法是，如果 CMV 是一个潜在问题，则可以通过 Harman 单因素检验轻松识别。在这篇文章中，我们表明这两种信念都是错误的，需要纠正。为了更普遍地证明我们的关键点，我们使用分析推导而不是经验模拟。首先，我们检查 CMV 对观察变量之间相关性的影响，作为测量不可靠性和“真实”特征相关性的符号和大小的函数。我们证明，对于负性状相关性，CMV 导致观察到的相关性显着向上偏差（即，观察到的相关性不如性状相关性那么负），并且在某些条件下，观察到的相关性甚至可能具有错误的符号（假设方法负载都是正的或都是负的）。我们还表明，对于正性状相关性，由于测量不可靠性导致的向下偏差并不总能减轻由于 CMV 导致的向上偏差（再次假设方法负载要么都是正的，要么都是负的）。重要的是，我们的结果表明，CMV 的通胀效应在（正）特征相关性水平较低时更大，而不可靠性的通缩效应在性状相关性水平较高时更大。第二，