O Uso da técnica de modelagem em equações estruturais na área de marketing: um estudo comparativo entre publicações no Brasil e no exterior

This article investigates the use of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in the published articles on the main brazilian business administration conference (ENANPAD) marketing track and also on the marketing section of the most important brazilian business administration journals (RAE, RAUSP and RAC) in the last ten years: 1994 to 2003. In addition to the analysis of the published articles, the authors present a comparison with Baumgartner and Homburg's (1996) findings in their investigation on SEM usage, which explored the papers published at main international marketing journals. The text begins with a brief overview of SEM - its origins, functions and characteristics, main steps, some applications, its essentials and some problematic aspects of the method. Then the criteria used to analyze the papers are presented. The results are shown in detail, including a comparison with Baumgartner and Homnburg's findings. This article ends with an overall evaluation about the quality of the use of SEM in Brazil, along with some suggestions for future applications of SEM in marketing.