Structural Equation Modeling with the SmartPLS

The objective of this article is to present a didactic example of Structural Equation Modeling using the software SmartPLS 2.0 M3. The program mentioned uses the method of Partial Least Squares and seeks to address the following situations frequently observed in marketing research: Absence of symmetric distributions of variables measured by a theory still in its beginning phase or with little “consolidation”, formative models, and/or a limited amount of data. The growing use of SmartPLS has demonstrated its robustness and the applicability of the model in the areas that are being studied.