Are There Questionable Research Practices in Management Research?
The publishing industry can be competitive. But how far will a potential researcher go to achieve success? Farther than you would think, according to a forthcoming Journal of Management article entitled “The Chrysalis Effect: How Ugly Initial Results Metamorphosize into Beautiful Articles.”
The abstract:
The issue of a published literature not representative of the population of research is most often discussed in terms of entire studies being suppressed. However, alternative sources of publication bias are questionable research practices (QRPs) that entail post hoc alterations of hypotheses to support data or post hoc alterations of data to support hypotheses. Using general strain theory as an explanatory framework, we outline the means, motives, and opportunities for researchers to better their chances of publication independent of rigor and relevance. We then assess the frequency of QRPs in management research by tracking differences between dissertations and their resulting journal publications. Our primary finding is that from dissertation to journal article, the ratio of supported to unsupported hypotheses more than doubled (0.82 to 1.00 versus 1.94 to 1.00). The rise in predictive accuracy resulted from the dropping of statistically nonsignificant hypotheses, the addition of statistically significant hypotheses, the reversing of predicted direction of hypotheses, and alterations to data. We conclude with recommendations to help mitigate the problem of an unrepresentative literature that we label the “Chrysalis Effect.”
Leading author Ernest Hugh O’Boyle, Jr. and Journal of Management Associate Editor Fred Oswald discuss the article’s findings and the effects these findings have on management literature in a new podcast. You can listen to the interview for free by clicking here.
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