Exploratory factor analysis - antecedents of information sharing in supply chains

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the approaches that can be undertaken to attain a factor solution that fulfils the criteria of factor analysis (FA), achieves the research aims and makes interpretation easy. Since FA can result in an infinite number of solutions, it is up to the researcher to decide which one to choose. Hence, thoughtful researcher judgements are critical in conducting exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and acquiring rational outcomes. For beginners, it might be unclear to make decision as to which factor solution to select that is acceptable, justifiable and interpretable. Most of the research papers that use EFA do not explain in detail how the final factor structure has been acquired. Hence, this paper aims to provide future researchers aiming to use EFA in their studies for the first time, an example of a complete EFA process. To achieve the aim of this paper, published articles across maritime journals will be examined to discuss the use of EFA. This will be followed by an example of EFA using an empirical data set from Nepal to emphasise the approaches that can be undertaken to make decisions as to whether to retain or drop an item from the analysis to attain an interpretable factor solution.