EN 
ES Vasilica Maria Margalina, manager and instructor at IDVAS GROUP participated as a presenter at the PLS2024 International Conference. This biannual event brings together PLS-SEM specialists and researchers who apply this statistical method. This year, the conference took place from September 3 to 7 and was organized by Sunway Business School , Malaysia. This year’s edition gathered important keynote speakers, including professors Christian M. Ringle, Marko Sarstedt, Cheah Jun Hwa, Mumtaz Ali, Ramayah Thurasamy, and Mostafa Rasoolimanesh, among others.
Professors Christian M. Ringle and Marko Sarstedt, funders and developers of SmartPLS, gave several talks and a workshop in which they addressed current debates and recent developments in PLS-SEM analysis.
Prof. Christian M. Ringle, on his session intitled “PLS-SEM method: Clarifications on central points of criticism, usefulness in research and latest development”, pointed out that the debate on the usefulness of PLS-SEM analysis and its advantages and disadvantages compared to the CB-SEM method is back on the agenda. The professor reiterated the usefulness of both methods of analysis, but that the objective of each is different: CB-SEM is the method to be applied for theory validation, while PLS-SEM is suitable for prediction.
Prof. Marko Sarstedt addressed the topic on “Uncertainty in researcher’s application of SEM estimators. In this session, he emphasized the importance of data treatment prior to PLS-SEM analysis, especially in the presence of missing data and heterogeneity.
The conference also addressed issues related to the criteria that researchers can use to select a good journal to publish their papers. These criteria are becoming increasingly important due to the increase of journals with poor standards and fake conferences. The criteria used by editors of high impact journals to select papers were also discussed and some tips for researchers were shared.
On September 6, Prof. Christian M. Ringle and Prof. Marko Sarstedt gave a workshop on Advanced Modeling and Results Illustration in PLS-SEM. The main topics of this workshop were necessary condition analysis (NCA), combined importance-performance map analysis (cIPMA), higher-order constructs (HCM) and predictive model comparison. Among these topics stands out cIPMA, which combines IPMA analysis with NCA. This type of analysis allows us to know not only which independent variables are the most important to achieve a good level of the dependent variable, but also the necessary levels for an optimal result.
IDVAS GROUP Will son launch courses on PLS-SEM. You can review our IDVAS ACADEMY page for more information or follow us on our social media channels.