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Over the past 20 years, partial least squares (PLS) has become a popular method in marketing research. At the same time, several methodological studies have demonstrated problems with the technique but have had little impact on its use in marketing research practice. This study aims to present some of these criticisms in a reader-friendly way for non-methodologists.

Key critiques of PLS are summarized and demonstrated using existing data sets in easily replicated ways. Recommendations are made for assessing whether PLS is a useful method for a given research problem.

PLS is fundamentally just a way of constructing scale scores for regression. PLS provides no clear benefits for marketing researchers and has disadvantages that are features of the original design and cannot be solved within the PLS framework itself. Unweighted sums of item scores provide a more robust way of creating scale scores.

The findings strongly suggest that researchers abandon the use of PLS in typical marketing studies.

This paper provides concrete examples and techniques to practicing marketing and social science researchers regarding how to incorporate composites into their work, and how to make decisions regarding such.

This work presents a novel perspective on PLS critiques by showing how researchers can use their own data to assess whether PLS (or another composite method) can provide any advantage over simple sum scores. A composite equivalence index is introduced for this purpose.

This study aims to provide a response to the commentary by Yuan on the paper “Marketing or Methodology” in this issue of EJM.

Conceptual argument and statistical discussion.

The authors find that some of Yuan’s arguments are incorrect, or unclear. Further, rather than contradicting the authors’ conclusions, the material provided by Yuan in his commentary actually provides additional reasons to avoid partial least squares (PLS) in marketing research. As such, Yuan’s commentary is best understood as additional evidence speaking against the use of PLS in real-world research.

This rejoinder, coupled with Yuan’s comment, continues to support the strong implication that researchers should avoid using PLS in marketing and related research.

Marketing researchers should avoid using PLS in their work.

This rejoinder supports the earlier conclusions of “Marketing or Methodology,” with additional argumentation and evidence.