Reassessing the effect of survey characteristics on Common Method Variance in emotional and social intelligence competencies assessment

Reviewers of papers in business research often reject papers that using a single method for data collection, arguing with the argument that the results cannot be trusted on account of because of Common Method Variance (CMV). This idea is inspired by Campbell and Fiske (1959). Recently, Organizational Research Methods (2010) devoted particular paid special attention to this problem. In that issue, it turns out that it is not so clear what CMV is and how great its large the effect is. In this context we will report on a within-subject, split-ballot multi-trait multi-method experimental design for estimating that allows to estimate CMV for a specific method (length of the response scale) and the effect of a common data collection method (self -reporting of behaviour) related to Emotional and Social Competencies. Results show that there is indeed CMV, but the effect of this common variance is much smaller than the effect of the random errors. This result deviates from the conclusion of Lance et .al. (2010) that these two effects cancel each other out. This study agrees with previous research suggesting that random errors should receive get at least as much or even more reviewer attention of reviewers than than CMV.