A systematic review of PLS in sports management

This study aims to systematically investigate the use of partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) in sports management journals, and provide instructions and guidelines to apply this method.
 This study is a systematic review, and secondary data was used. 183 studies of all PLS-SEM studies in 14 journals of sport management, published between 2020 and 2022, were analyzed in terms of reasons for using PLS-SEM, data characteristics, model characteristics, evaluation of measurement models, structural model evaluation, reporting, and using advanced analysis.
The results show that the researchers have indicated a few reasons to apply PLS-SEM, which majority of articles highlighted small sample size and lack of data normality. The results identified several issues in reporting the measurement model assessment, especially for measurement evaluation of second-order models. In addition, the findings show that most of studies have not considered reporting the advanced criteria for evaluating of structural model.
The results of this study assist researchers, reviewers and editors of journals to be more mindful, in future studies regarding the reporting of the results using PLS-SEM and avoid incorrect conclusions.