Developments in PLS-PM for the building of a System of Composite Indicators

Many phenomena are complex and therefore difficult to measure and to evaluate. Research, in the last years, has been focusing on the development and use of Composite Indicators (CIs) in order to obtain a global description of a complex phenomenon, and to convey a suitable synthesis of information. The existing literature offers several alternative methods for obtaining a composite indicator. The work focuses on building them through to SEM, specifically with the use of PLS-PM. In recent years many advances have been developed, in the context of these models to solve some problems related to the role that the CIs play within that system and linked to the heterogeneity within the data. For this, the work reviews the main developments of the PLS-PM connected to solve these problems. In particular, the research focuses on a particular aspect linked to the high level of abstraction, proposing several alternative methods for analyzing and studying Higher-Order Constuct CI, on the calculation of the estimates for the determination of endogenous block, so as to be the best estimated and represented by the blocks below

Expert construction during the Italian vaccination campaign against COVID-19: positional, reputational, and communicational spheres in comparison

The purpose of this article is to understand what mechanism leads specific actors of the scientific community to assume the central role of experts during the COVID-19 pandemic vaccination campaign. Thanks to the understanding of the world of narratives and self-constructed representations we will try to understand if the fig-ure of the expert is influenced by the institutional role they play, the network of collaborations and the academic network as a proxy of their reputation and, finally, what figure emerges instead from the mainstream media such as the press and so-cial networks such as Facebook and Twitter

Chapter Innovation and sustainability: the Italian scenario

Society and policy makers demand innovation systems oriented towards several goals of sustainable development. Therefore, recent literature has dedicated a growing interest to both innovation and sustainability in the pursuit of environmental, economic and social development; in addition, the emerging topic of ‘sustainable innovation’ (and ‘eco-innovation’) seems to combine the main features of them. The definition of these concepts has been significantly changed during the last decades, and a broad discussion continues today about which indicators should be used to measure innovation, sustainability and their combination. The current paper investigates this relationship, and - in the authors’ opinion - the research question connected to the impact of the innovative product (and service and process) solutions on sustainability can be addressed by means of a stable theoretical framework. To study the interaction between innovation and sustainability, the usage of specific territorial features might represent a useful perspective to manage short-and long-term environmental and economic issues. As for the theoretical model, the present article considers a specific technique suitable for investigating the entire set of characteristics involved in the model. From a public makers and managerial point of view, the possibility of improving the firm’ efficiencies in terms of several dimensions of sustainable innovation represents a relevant topic that must be encouraged

Chapter A bibliometric study of global research activity in relation to the use of partial least squares for policy evaluation

Structural equation modeling (SEM), especially partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) has become a mainstream method in many fields of research. In the last years it has been increasingly disseminated in a variety of disciplines. The researchers have been promoting this new statistical methods for the evaluation of policies. Generally, policy evaluation applies evaluation principles and methods to examine the content, implementation or impact of a policy. To better understand and characterize this trend, a bibliometric study of international papers on this subject has been developed in order to describe the use of SEM and PLS-PM approaches in the policy evaluation in the almost last 20 years. A total of 450 articles from 2000 to 2020 have been selected and analyzed in order to discover the research trends in this field and the main dimensions and words related to the terms “decision making” and “SEM-PLS” approach, that are most commonly employed in the scientific literature. The research has been conducted in theWeb of Science from ISI Web of Knowledge database and Scopus database, with the aim of identifying the major themes, authors, areas, types of the sources, titles, years of publication and countries of these publications, as well as the main themes related to the two topic analyze

Chapter Sustainable Innovation: worldwide trends in the scientific production through a bibliometric study

The scientific production on the Innovation, especially on Sustainable Innovation, has grown in recent years. Various expressions and definitions for sustainability and innovation have been reported in the literature. Sometimes the two concepts are combined and described with one term, Sustainable Innovation. Research on sustainable innovation has grown in popularity due to the need to incorporate sustainability within business practices. The purpose of this study is to investigate the status and the evolution of the scientific studies on this topic and identify the worldwide trends in scientific production over time through a research conducted on the metadata of Web of Science, a database commonly used by researchers. A bibliometric analysis has been developed to analyse a total of 1,511 documents published between 2000 and 2021 in order to discover the research trends in this field and the main dimensions and words related to the term “Sustainable Innovation”

Higher-Order PLS-PM Approach for Different Types of Constructs

AbstractPartial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) has become very popular in recent years, for measuring concepts that depend on different aspects and that are based on different types of relationships. PLS-PM represents a useful tool to explore relationships and to analyze the influence of the different aspects on the complex phenomenon analyzed. In particular, the use of higher-order constructs has allowed researchers to extend the application of PLS-PM to more advanced and complex models. In this work, our attention is focused on higher-order constructs that include reflective or formative relationships. Even if the dispute between formative models and reflective models is not exactly recent, it is still alive in current literature, for the most part within the context of structural equation models. This paper focuses attention on theoretical and mathematical differences between formative and reflective measurement models within the context of the PLS-PM approach. A simulation study is proposed in order to show how these approaches fit well in different modeling situations. The approaches have been compared using empirical application in a sustainability context. The findings from the simulation and the empirical application can help researchers to estimate and to use the higher-order PLS-PM approach in reflective and formative type models

Individual Disadvantage and Training Policies: The Makings of "Model-based" Composite Indicators

Working Paper Ircres-CNR 02/2016. In evaluating a policy, it is fundamental to represent its multiple dimensions and the targets it affects. Indeed, the impact of a policy generally involves a combination of socio-economic aspects that are difficult to represent. In this study, regional training policies are addressed, which are aimed at recovering the huge gaps in employability and social inclusion of weak Italian trainees. Previous counterfactual estimates of the net impact of regional training policies show the mess to observe and take into account the manifold aspects of trainees’ weakness. In fact, the target population consists of very disadvantaged individuals, who experience hard situations in the labour market. To overcome this shortfall, the present paper proposes a Structural Equation Model, that considers the impact of trainees’ socio-economic conditions on the policy outcome itself. In particular, the ex ante human capital is estimated from educational, social and individual backgrounds. Then, labour and training policies augment the individual human capital, affecting labour market outcomes jointly with individual job search behaviour. All these phenomena are expressed by a wide set of manifest variables and synthesised by composite indicators calculated with Partial Least Squares SEM. The makings of SEM are appraised, applied to the case of trainees in compulsory education.

The use of PLS-PM to analyze progress testing results: the case of Italian degree courses in Dentistry and Dental Prosthodontics

Progress testing is a longitudinal approach based on equivalent tests given at fixed intervals with the intention of assessing the development of functional knowledge or competence. The longitudinal integrated assessment approach has a demonstrable positive effect on student learning behavior. Furthermore, it leads to more reliable decisions as well as having a good predictive validity for future competence or the retention of knowledge. The aim of this paper, on the one hand, is to offer a new perspective on the analysis of progress testing through the use of a growth curve and, on the other, to demonstrate how Partial Least Square Path Modeling can help us to analyze the growth curve. Longitudinal data from progress testing at Italian Dental Schools are analyzed by using a Partial Least Square Path Modeling latent growth curve approach

Echinococcosis — Rare Locations and Uncommon Clinical Manifestations

Echinococcosis is a zoonotic infection caused by tiny tapeworms of the genus Echinocococcus. Cystic Echinococcosis, also known as hydatid disease, is caused by Echinococcus granulosus and rarely by Echinococcus multilocularis

budget impact analysis of a biosynthetic mesh for incisional hernia repair

Abstract Purpose With the development of newer prostheses for hernia repair, it is nowadays difficult to understand the total cost of managing patients treated with these advanced medical devices, especially in the complex abdomen, in which various complications may occur. The aim of this study was to determine the economic implications of these prostheses in order to inform decision making in the management of incisional hernia repair. Methods A budget impact analysis model was developed to evaluate the economic consequences related to the management of patients undergoing complex (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wound class II–III or Ventral Hernia Working Group grade 2/3) incisional hernia repair through biosynthetic, synthetic, or biological meshes, from the hospital perspective in Italy. The model was populated with complication rates mainly retrieved from the literature to compare the current scenario with 60%, 10%, and 30% rates of synthetic, biosynthetic, and biological mesh utilization, respectively, with future hypothetical scenarios that consider increasing rates of biosynthetic mesh utilization with respect to the other types of mesh in the next 5 years. Hospital costs of the different events were estimated based on health care resource consumption derived from an electronic survey addressed to key opinion leaders in the field. Findings The analysis compared the current scenario with future hypothetical scenarios that consider increasing utilization rates of biosynthetic meshes of 25%, 38%, and 44% in the next 1, 3, and 5 years, as estimated by clinicians. Considering 40,000 incisional hernia repairs per year, an increasing use of the biosynthetic meshes may result in a decrease in the total hospital budget of about €153 million in the next 5 years, with a savings per patient of about €770. Implications The findings of this study support the use of biosynthetic meshes for complex abdominal wall repairs in Italy, showing a potential decrease in the hospital budget in Italy after the diffusion of the new biosynthetic prostheses. Further studies and data from clinical practice would provide additional information to increase the understanding of the economic sustainability of these advanced devices