Replication studies in top management journals: An empirical investigation of prevalence, types, outcomes, and impact

Abstract

Replication studies are important for the empirical research process. Yet, while there is an increased awareness of the need for replication in management research, it appears that such studies are rarely published in leading management journals. Importantly, we lack a comprehensive overview of replication studies in the top management journals that spans all sub-disciplines. Our systematic review closes this gap and provides an overview of the prevalence, types, outcomes, and impact of replication studies in management journals. We find that differences in the prevalence of replications between sub-disciplines exist and that most replications are wide replications. With regard to the replication outcome, our review shows that the share of non-confirming replications is low. Moreover, such replications are cited less often than confirming replications pointing towards a confirmation bias in management research. We discuss the implications of our results for authors, reviewers, and editors of management journals.

Meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM): new tricks of the trade

“…MRQ also strives to contribute to the methodological development of the management research field by discussing and advancing the state of the art of conducting literature reviews, replications, and meta-analyses. To this end, MRQ published several editorials (Block and Fisch 2020;Block and Kuckertz 2018;Fisch and Block 2018;Kuckertz and Block 2021) and articles (Block et al 2022a;Clark et al 2021). This editorial extends the practical guide for a meta-analysis by Hansen et al (2012) to a more experienced audience.…”

Editor’s Introduction

“…Research proposals will be reviewed by an associate editor and at least one anonymous peer reviewer. Replication Studies will provide an important opportunity for scholars to assess and validate our research literature. I’m sure most readers are aware of the so-called “replication crisis” that plagues much of the social sciences (Bergh et al, 2017; Block et al, 2022; Hensel, 2021), and our field certainly isn’t immune. We will benefit from critical assessment of our research literature to bolster our strongest insights while also rethinking some of our conventional wisdom.…”

Systematic reviewers' perspectives on replication of systematic reviews: A survey

“…replication studies with confirmatory results [8,29,35]. Lastly, since replication requires redoing the analyses and sometimes the search, screening, and data extraction, it can be impeded by the unavailability of review data and analytic code used in the original review [21,36,37].…”

“…Despite the merits of replication, replication studies are published at relatively low rates [8][9][10][11][12], even more so for replications of SRs [13]. An understanding of factors that encourage or discourage replications might inform the development of effective strategies to promote the conduct of high-quality replications.…”