Measuring Environmental Complexity: A Theoretical and Empirical Assessment

Researchers attempting to measure environmental complexity remain challenged by the lack of a theoretically compelling and empirically sound scheme for operationalizing this important construct. The authors' synthesis of complexity's supporting literatures leads them to conclude that complexity is a multidimensional construct that has been operationalized overly narrowly in many cases. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of industry-level data drawn from two periods support this conclusion and suggest that researchers should consider specifying a multidimensional measure of environmental complexity.