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.