Corporate sustainable longevity: scale development and validation

Abstract

From the roots of corporate longevity that has been built by previous researchers, this article enhances existing work toward measuring the concept of corporate sustainable longevity (CSL) beyond an average firm’s age. By adopting the sequential exploratory mixed method, we performed this study in two phases: qualitative followed by quantitative. In the first phase, we used the Delphi method to verify and validate the thematic elements of the construct and generated a pool of items from the extant literature. In the second phase, we collected the data twice through a survey questionnaire (pilot N = 200 and final N = 271) and validated the scale through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The results generated a five-factor structure of CSL with model fit indices, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.15, goodness-of-fit index (GFI) = 0.917, adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI) = 0.901, normed fit index (NFI) = 0.938, incremental fix index (IFI) = 0.996 with comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.996 with satisfactory discriminant and convergent validities. Cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0.89 to 0.90 provided an evidence of internal consistency reliability of the CSL scale. This novel scale fills the gap in the literature by enabling practitioners and researchers in anticipating the firm’s ability to survive in the long run. The significance and limitations of the study are discussed in the end.