Scaling Methods in Getting Content Validation Evidence: The Construction of a Scale to Assess Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

The aim of this study is test the validity of a scale for measuring the economic dimension of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The final scale, composed by 14 items, is constructed attending to judgments of experts, companies and stakeholders. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a methodology for dealing with complex constructs like CSR, is applied to the scale in order to assess the items. AHP methodology also allows applying Thurtone’s pairwise comparisons methodology for the scale validation, showing that pairwise comparisons obtain multiple evidences of validity and eases working with complex constructs.