Testing Mediation in Organizational Research: Origins, Challenges, Research Design, and Analysis
Author
Abstract
Despite that testing mediation has been prevalent in organizational research for decades, there remain much confusion in theories, concepts, and analytical practices. This study highlights and comments on existing discourses that span 80 years in different literatures and presents them in four sections. First, we traced back the origins of mediation research in psychology in the 1930s and in sociology in the 1950s and linked the discourses to the present. Second, we summarized the major challenges to the most frequently used concepts and methods introduced in the Baron and Kenny (1986) study. Third, we proposed research design issues pertaining to mediation testing. Finally, we highlighted five types of fundamental mediation models and discussed the pros and cons of various analytical techniques in testing these models. This study hopes to serve as a useful guide for mediation researchers.
Key Words
Mediator, Mediation Model, Research Design, Analytic Procedure
