Rethinking the Measurement Architecture of Waste Bank Sustainability: A Pilot Study of Managers' Communication Competence

Abstract

This study examines the validity and reliability of a multidimensional measurement model linking member characteristics and participation, institutional support, managers' communication competence, and three-pillar sustainability (economic, social, environmental) in community-based waste banks in South Tangerang City, Indonesia. As a pilot study (n = 32), it applied reliability analysis (Cronbach's alpha), item-total correlation, and principal component analysis as a proxy for outer loadings across 57 raw items nested within 12 sub-dimensions. Results indicate that managers' communication competence is the most internally coherent construct (alpha ranging from 0.78 to 0.95 across its three sub-dimensions), whereas individual member characteristics and the economic sustainability dimension fail to behave reflectively with respect to their parent constructs (alpha of 0.03 and 0.30, respectively). Even after item purification, the economic dimension could not be reconstituted as a psychometrically sound reflective construct, while the social and environmental dimensions demonstrated strong internal coherence. Correlational evidence further shows that the economic dimension is systematically decoupled from the social and environmental dimensions as well as from communication competence, echoing the 'mission deviation' phenomenon documented in grassroots and social-enterprise research. These findings challenge the routine treatment of triple-bottom-line sustainability as a unidimensional reflective construct in community-based economic institutions and recommend (a) a formative specification for member characteristics and (b) the separation of the economic dimension from the social-environmental dimensions when measuring waste bank sustainability in future, larger-sample structural studiThis pilot study examines the preliminary reliability and measurement structure of a multidimensional model linking member-related factors, institutional support, managers' communication competence, and three dimensions of waste bank sustainability economic, social, and environmental—in community-based waste banks in South Tangerang City, Indonesia. The study employed a quantitative cross-sectional design involving 32 waste bank managers from approximately 25 waste bank units. A total of 57 Likert-scale items across 12 sub-dimensions were examined using internal consistency analysis, item-total correlations, item purification, and principal component analysis (PCA) as an exploratory item-screening technique. The findings indicate that managers' communication competence demonstrated relatively strong internal consistency across confidence/initiative, knowledge, and communication skills, with Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.78 to 0.95. In contrast, several institutional support dimensions required item refinement, while the current operationalization of economic sustainability did not provide sufficient evidence to support a coherent reflective measurement structure. After item purification, the two remaining economic sustainability items showed a perfect correlation (r = 1.00), suggesting substantial item redundancy rather than substantive evidence of reliability. The preliminary correlation pattern also indicates that the economic dimension may not align empirically with the social and environmental dimensions in this pilot sample. These findings suggest that future measurement models should distinguish demographic characteristics from participation-related constructs, further refine the economic sustainability indicators, and avoid assuming that triple-bottom-line sustainability necessarily forms a single reflective construct. The study provides preliminary evidence for revising the measurement architecture before a larger-scale validation and structural analysises.