Organizational strategy and structure are important variables in understanding firm outcomes, but does the strength of those relationships depend on contingency factors such as the uncertainty of the environment or the products and services offered by the firm? Questions such as this one require that we statistically examine the possible presence of contingency or moderating effects. Is the effect of the competitive environment on firm performance transmitted by firm strategy such that the environment influences strategic choices that in turn affect performance? Questions such as this one require that we statistically examine the possible presence of an intervening or mediating effects.
For decades, questions and hypotheses that involve moderation and mediation have been central to strategic management research. Moreover, accurate answers to these questions have important implications for practice because knowledge about moderating effects (i.e., conditions under which an effect occurs) and mediating effects (i.e., reasons why an antecedent is related to an outcome) leads to more accurate decisions and allocation of resources that will enhance firm outcomes.
Our article published in Organizational Research Methods (ORM) titled “Improving Our Understanding of Moderation and Mediation in Strategic Management Research” reviews common impediments to the accurate and valid assessment of moderating and mediating effects. We reviewed articles published in Strategic Management Journal and Organization Science over the past 10 years and discovered the unfortunate and pervasive presence of these problems, which lead researchers to misleading conclusions about moderating and mediating effects. Our review of the 205 articles that assessed moderation revealed seven key problems. Overall, published articles demonstrated an average of 2.57 of the seven problems we identified, with only one article avoiding the problems entirely. In similar fashion, our review of the 62 articles that addressed mediation revealed six key problems and, on average, the articles exhibited 3.52 of the problems each, with none of the published articles being problem-free.
We believe that our ORM article describing these problems and their solutions will be useful for strategy researchers interested in examining moderation and mediation. Implementing these solutions will help improve the appropriateness and accuracy of tests of moderation and mediation. Our recommendations can be implemented by researchers and also used as guidelines for editors and reviewers who evaluate manuscripts reporting tests of moderation and mediation. Our article also provides references to key methodological sources on moderation and mediation that readers can pursue for further details about the issues we discuss.
We look forward to the reactions that our article will generate and sincerely hope that it will serve as a catalyst to improve the assessment of moderation and mediation, which in turn will lead to more accurate results that will benefit theory and practice.
The abstract for the article:
We clarify differences among moderation, partial mediation, and full mediation and identify methodological problems related to moderation and mediation from a review of articles in Strategic Management Journal and Organization Science published from 2005 to 2014. Regarding moderation, we discuss measurement error, range restriction, and unequal sample sizes across moderator-based subgroups; insufficient statistical power; the artificial categorization of continuous variables; assumed negative consequences of correlations between product terms and its components (i.e., multicollinearity); and interpretation of first-order effects based on models excluding product terms. Regarding mediation, we discuss problems with the causal-steps procedure, inferences about mediation based on cross-sectional designs, whether a relation between the antecedent and the outcome is necessary for testing mediation, the routine inclusion of a direct path from the antecedent to the outcome, and consequences of measurement error. We also explain how integrating moderation and mediation can lead to important and useful insights for strategic management theory and practice. Finally, we offer specific and actionable recommendations for improving the appropriateness and accuracy of tests of moderation and mediation in strategic management research. Our recommendations can also be used as a checklist for editors and reviewers who evaluate manuscripts reporting tests of moderation and mediation.
Herman Aguinis is the Avram Tucker Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Management at the George Washington University School of Business. His research interests span several human resource management, organizational behavior, and research methods and analysis topics. He has published five books and more than 130 articles in refereed journals. He is a fellow of the Academy of Management, past editor of Organizational Research Methods, and received the Academy of Management Research Methods Division Distinguished Career Award.
Jeffrey R. Edwards is the Belk Distinguished Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina. He is past editor of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, past chair of the Research Methods Division of the Academy of Management, and a fellow of the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. His methodological research addresses difference scores, polynomial regression, moderation and mediation, structural equation modeling, construct validity, and the development and evaluation of theory.
Kyle J. Bradley is a doctoral candidate in organizational behavior and human resource management in the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. His scholarly interests include research methods, performance management, star performers, and the work-life interface. His work has appeared in Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, Organizational Research Methods, and Organizational Dynamics and has been presented at the meetings of the Academy of Management and Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Sage, the parent of Social Science Space, is a global academic publisher of books, journals, and library resources with a growing range of technologies to enable discovery, access, and engagement. Believing that research and education are critical in shaping society, 24-year-old Sara Miller McCune founded Sage in 1965. Today, we are controlled by a group of trustees charged with maintaining our independence and mission indefinitely.
In this article, Lilia Raquel Rojas-Cruz, Irene Henriques, Bryan Husted reflect on the inspiration behind their research article, “Exploring Public Health Research for Corporate Health Policy: Insights for Business and Society Scholars,” in Business & Society.
Sage used the opportunity of Responsible Business Management week 2024 to ask its authors, editors, and contacts what responsible management education means to them.
‘Push, Pull, Dance’ seeks to reimagine ethical supply chains in public health procurement. In this article, Olga Martin-Ortega, Martina Trusgnach, and Cindy Berman offer a new theoretical framework for tackling human and labor rights violations, including modern slavery, through public procurement.
Thanks to a collaboration between the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), applications are now being accepted for […]
Solicitations are now being sought for the National Science Foundation’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, and in an unheralded […]
What are the three biggest challenges Australia faces in the next five to ten years? What role will the social sciences play in resolving these challenges? The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia asked these questions in a discussion paper earlier this year. The backdrop to this review is cuts to social science disciplines around the country, with teaching taking priority over research.
Social psychologist Felice Levine, who has served as executive director of the American Educational Research Association for more than 22 years, will step down in 2025.
Karine Morin, whose experience in the policy world spans health and health research, the physical sciences and equity, diversity, and inclusion, has been named the new president and CEO of Canada’s Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
The award recognizes achievement in the social and behavioral sciences that advances understanding of pressing social issues. Deadline: September 16, 2024.
Sage (the parent of Social Science Space) and the Surviving Society podcast have launched a collaborative podcast series, Social Science for Social […]
The Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences has launched the Big Thinking Podcast, a show series that features leading researchers in the humanities and social sciences in conversation about the most important and interesting issues of our time.
The June 2024 installment of The Evidence newsletter puts post-war conflict resolution practices under the microscope – taking a closer look at how women are adversely affected by these peacebuilding exercises.
‘What Do We Know and What Should We Do About the Irish Border?’ is a new book from Katy Hayward that applies social science to the existing issues and what they portend.
Brexit seems likely to extend the hostility of the UK immigration system to scholars from European Union countries — unless a significant change of migration politics and prevalent public attitudes towards immigration politics took place in the UK. There are no indications that the latter will happen anytime soon.
A new report from the Royal Society about the effects on Brexit on science in the United Kingdom has our peripatetic Daniel Nehring mulling the changes that will occur in higher education and academic productivity.
In this article, Juan Bogliaccini and Aldo Madariaga explore leftist governments in peripheral economics — the topic of their recently published article, […]
In this article, co-authors Elizabeth Houldsworth, Andrea Tresidder, and Tatiana Rowson answer a few questions regarding the inspiration of their recent article, […]
Social psychologist Felice Levine, who has served as executive director of the American Educational Research Association for more than 22 years, will step down in 2025.
Karine Morin, whose experience in the policy world spans health and health research, the physical sciences and equity, diversity, and inclusion, has been named the new president and CEO of Canada’s Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Political theorist and public intellectual Achille Mbembe, among the most read and cited scholars from the African continent, has been awarded the 2024 Holberg Prize.
The National Academies’ Committee on National Statistics seeks nominations for members of an ad hoc consensus study panel — sponsored by the U.S. Census Bureau — to review and evaluate the quality of the 2020 Census.
The retraction of academic papers often functions as an indictment against a researcher’s reputation. Tim Kersjes argues that for retractions to function as an effective corrective to the scholarly record, they need shed this punitive reputation.
The authors describe how by chance they learned how some actors have added extra references, invisible in the text but present in the articles’ metadata, when those unscrupulous actors submitted the articles to scientific databases.
The June 2024 installment of The Evidence newsletter puts post-war conflict resolution practices under the microscope – taking a closer look at how women are adversely affected by these peacebuilding exercises.
You’ve likely heard the hype around artificial intelligence, or AI, but do you find ChatGPT genuinely useful in your professional life? A free course offered by Sage Campus could change all th
The retraction of academic papers often functions as an indictment against a researcher’s reputation. Tim Kersjes argues that for retractions to function as an effective corrective to the scholarly record, they need shed this punitive reputation.
The authors describe how by chance they learned how some actors have added extra references, invisible in the text but present in the articles’ metadata, when those unscrupulous actors submitted the articles to scientific databases.
An article in the journal Psychological Science, “The New Statistics: Why and How” by La Trobe University’s Geoff Cumming, has proved remarkably popular in the years since and is the third-most cited paper published in a Sage journal in 2013.
This year, the American Sociological Association (ASA) will be holding their 119th annual meeting with the theme “Intersectional Solidarities: Building Communities of […]
Thanks to a collaboration between the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), applications are now being accepted for […]
What is the best strategy for finding someone missing in the wilderness? It’s complicated, but the method known as ‘Lost Person Behavior’ seems to offers some hope.
The President’s Management Agenda Learning Agenda: Public Participation & Community Engagement Evidence Challenge is dedicated to forming a strategic, evidence-based plan that federal agencies and external researchers can use to solve big problems.
Christopher Everett, outgoing student body president at the University of North Carolina, reflects on the role of student governance in the modern, and conflicted, university
Instead of adhering to a corporate model based on individual achievement, the authors argue that universities need to shift towards co-operative governance that fosters collaborative approaches to teaching and research
An article in the journal Psychological Science, “The New Statistics: Why and How” by La Trobe University’s Geoff Cumming, has proved remarkably popular in the years since and is the third-most cited paper published in a Sage journal in 2013.
Social sciences can also inform the design and creation of ethical frameworks and guidelines for AI development and for deployment into systems. Social scientists can contribute expertise: on data quality, equity, and reliability; on how bias manifests in AI algorithms and decision-making processes; on how AI technologies impact marginalized communities and exacerbate existing inequities; and on topics such as fairness, transparency, privacy, and accountability.
The retraction of academic papers often functions as an indictment against a researcher’s reputation. Tim Kersjes argues that for retractions to function as an effective corrective to the scholarly record, they need shed this punitive reputation.
The authors describe how by chance they learned how some actors have added extra references, invisible in the text but present in the articles’ metadata, when those unscrupulous actors submitted the articles to scientific databases.
David Canter rues the way psychologists and other social scientists too often emasculate important questions by forcing them into the straitjacket of limited scientific methods.
Social psychologist Felice Levine, who has served as executive director of the American Educational Research Association for more than 22 years, will step down in 2025.
Karine Morin, whose experience in the policy world spans health and health research, the physical sciences and equity, diversity, and inclusion, has been named the new president and CEO of Canada’s Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Aiming to spur greater connections between the life and social sciences, Science magazine and NOMIS look to recognize young researchers through the NOMIS and Science Young Explorers Award.
An article in the journal Psychological Science, “The New Statistics: Why and How” by La Trobe University’s Geoff Cumming, has proved remarkably popular in the years since and is the third-most cited paper published in a Sage journal in 2013.
By carefully interrogating the system of economic incentives underlying innovations and how technologies are monetized in practice, we can generate a better understanding of the risks, both economic and technological, nurtured by a market’s structure.
Christopher Everett, outgoing student body president at the University of North Carolina, reflects on the role of student governance in the modern, and conflicted, university
The upcoming UK General Election is often framed as ‘Rishi or Kier for PM.’ This is not, write the authors a textbook on UK politics, the questions being asked by actual Britons.
Yes, dad jokes can be fun. They play an important role in how we interact with our kids. But dad jokes may also help prepare them to handle embarrassment later in life.
What is the best strategy for finding someone missing in the wilderness? It’s complicated, but the method known as ‘Lost Person Behavior’ seems to offers some hope.
As he stands down from a two-year stint as the president of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences, or FABBS, Social Science Space took the opportunity to download a fraction of the experiences of cognitive psychologist Philip Rubin, especially his experiences connecting science and policy.
David Canter reviews his experience of filling in automated forms online for the same thing but getting very different answers, revealing the value systems built into these supposedly neutral processes.
The word censorship might bring to mind authoritarian regimes, book-banning, and restrictions on a free press, but Cory Clark, a behavioral scientist at […]
Overton spoke with Jonathan Breckon to learn about knowledge brokerage, influencing policy and the potential for technology and data to streamline the research-policy interface.
Social Science Space’s sister site, Methods Space, explored the broad topic of Social Good this past October, with guest Interviewee Dr. Benson Hong. Here Janet Salmons and him talk about the Academy of Management Perspectives journal article.
Thanks to a collaboration between the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), applications are now being accepted for […]
Funding for the U.S. National Science Foundation would fall by a half billion dollars in this fiscal year if a proposed budget the House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee takes effect – the first cut to the agency’s budget in several years.
The U.S. National Science Foundation’s new Responsible Design, Development, and Deployment of Technologies (ReDDDoT) program supports research, implementation, and educational projects for multidisciplinary, multi-sector teams
The negative consequences of relying too heavily on metrics to assess research quality are well known, potentially fostering practices harmful to scientific research such as p-hacking, salami science, or selective reporting. To address this systemic problem, Florian Naudet, and collegues present six principles for assessing scientists for hiring, promotion, and tenure.
Candace Jones, Mark Lorenzen, Jonathan Sapsed , eds.: The Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. 576 pp. $170.00, […]
Yes, dad jokes can be fun. They play an important role in how we interact with our kids. But dad jokes may also help prepare them to handle embarrassment later in life.
U.S. President Joseph Biden’s administration has laid down a marker buttressing the use of social and behavioral science in crafting policies for the federal government by releasing a 102-page Blueprint for the Use of Social and Behavioral Science to Advance Evidence-Based Policymaking.
The U.S. National Science Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have teamed up present a 90-minute online session examining how to balance public access to federally funded research results with an equitable publishing environment.
Five organizations representing knowledge networks, research libraries, and publishing platforms joined the Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences to review the present and the future of open access — in policy and in practice – in Canada
The retraction of academic papers often functions as an indictment against a researcher’s reputation. Tim Kersjes argues that for retractions to function as an effective corrective to the scholarly record, they need shed this punitive reputation.
Daniel Read argues that one way the late Daniel Kahneman stood apart from other researchers is that his work was driven by a desire not merely to contribute to a research field, but to create new fields.
As the U.S. Congress debates the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, a new paper in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences urges lawmakers to focus on provisions aimed at increasing the numbers of black and Latinx teachers.
To help in decisions surrounding the effects and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the the journal ‘Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences’ offers this collection of articles as a free resource.
Psychologist Susan Fiske was the founding editor of the journal Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences. In trying to reach a lay audience with research findings that matter, she counsels stepping a bit outside your academic comfort zone.
SAGE Publishing — the parent of Social Science Space – will hold its Third Annual Critical Thinking Bootcamp on August 9. Leaning more and register here
On May 13, the American Academy of Political and Social Science hosted an online seminar, co-sponsored by SAGE Publishing, that featured presentations […]
On Friday, April 23rd, join the Population Association of America and the Association of Population Centers for a virtual congressional briefing. The […]
The author’s team is developing ways to connect policymakers with university-based researchers – and studying what happens when these academics become the trusted sources, rather than those with special interests who stand to gain financially from various initiatives.
The upcoming UK General Election is often framed as ‘Rishi or Kier for PM.’ This is not, write the authors a textbook on UK politics, the questions being asked by actual Britons.
Kaye Husbands Fealing, an economist who has done pioneering work in the “science of broadening participation,” has been named the new leader of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.
Annie Pilote, dean of the faculty of graduate and postdoctoral studies at the Université Laval, was named chair of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences at its 2023 virtual annual meeting last month. Members also elected Debra Thompson as a new director on the board.
The award recognizes achievement in the social and behavioral sciences that advances understanding of pressing social issues. Deadline: September 16, 2024.
Public interest attorney Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative, will receive the 2024 Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize from the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
To address racial and ethnic inequalities in the U.S. criminal justice system, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine just released “Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice: Science, Practice and Policy.”
The ECPR-IPSA World of Political Science Survey 2023 assesses political science scholar’s viewpoints on the global status of the discipline and the challenges it faces, specifically targeting the phenomena of cancel culture, self-censorship and threats to academic freedom of expression.
The social and behavioral sciences supply evidence-based research that enables us to make sense of the shifting online landscape pertaining to mental health. We’ll explore three freely accessible articles (listed below) that give us a fuller picture on how TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and online forums affect mental health.
With research-based evidence increasingly being seen in policy, we should acknowledge that there are risks that the research or ‘evidence’ used isn’t suitable or can be accidentally misused for a variety of reasons.
Over a 10-year period Carol Tenopir of DataONE and her team conducted a global survey of scientists, managers and government workers involved in broad environmental science activities about their willingness to share data and their opinion of the resources available to do so (Tenopir et al., 2011, 2015, 2018, 2020). Comparing the responses over that time shows a general increase in the willingness to share data (and thus engage in Open Science).
Yes, dad jokes can be fun. They play an important role in how we interact with our kids. But dad jokes may also help prepare them to handle embarrassment later in life.
David Canter rues the way psychologists and other social scientists too often emasculate important questions by forcing them into the straitjacket of limited scientific methods.
The double-blind review process, adopted by many publishers and funding agencies, plays a vital role in maintaining fairness and unbiasedness by concealing the identities of authors and reviewers. However, in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, a pressing question arises: can an author’s identity be deduced even from an anonymized paper (in cases where the authors do not advertise their submitted article on social media)?
The claim that academics hype their research is not news. The use of subjective or emotive words that glamorize, publicize, embellish or exaggerate results and promote the merits of studies has been noted for some time and has drawn criticism from researchers themselves. Some argue hyping practices have reached a level where objectivity has been replaced by sensationalism and manufactured excitement. By exaggerating the importance of findings, writers are seen to undermine the impartiality of science, fuel skepticism and alienate readers.
Jasper Knight identifies five key issues that underlie working with human subjects in research and which transcend institutional or disciplinary differences.
A new database houses more 250 different useful artificial intelligence applications that can help change the way researchers conduct social science research.
The social and behavioral sciences supply evidence-based research that enables us to make sense of the shifting online landscape pertaining to mental health. We’ll explore three freely accessible articles (listed below) that give us a fuller picture on how TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and online forums affect mental health.
You’ve likely heard the hype around artificial intelligence, or AI, but do you find ChatGPT genuinely useful in your professional life? A free course offered by Sage Campus could change all th
Yes, dad jokes can be fun. They play an important role in how we interact with our kids. But dad jokes may also help prepare them to handle embarrassment later in life.
Aiming to spur greater connections between the life and social sciences, Science magazine and NOMIS look to recognize young researchers through the NOMIS and Science Young Explorers Award.
Opinions on immigration are not set in stone, suggests Rob Ford – but they may be set in generations. Zeroing in on the experience of the United Kingdom since the end of World War II, Ford – a political scientist at the University of Manchester – explains how this generation’s ‘other’ becomes the next generation’s ‘neighbor.’
Economist Tavneet Suri discusses fieldwork she’s done in handing our cash directly to Kenyans in poor and rural parts of Kenya, and what the generally good news from that work may herald more broadly.
Sage used the opportunity of Responsible Business Management week 2024 to ask its authors, editors, and contacts what responsible management education means to them.
Tejendra Pherali, a professor of education, conflict and peace at University College London, researches the intersection of education and conflict around the world.
In the first post from a series of bulletins on public data that social and behavioral scientists might be interested in, Gary Price links to an analysis from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
The next in SAGE Publishing’s How to Get Published webinar series focuses on promoting your writing after publication. The free webinar is set for November 16 at 4 p.m. BT/11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT.
At a time when there are so many concerns being raised about always-on work cultures and our right to disconnect, email is the bane of many of our working lives.
A new database houses more 250 different useful artificial intelligence applications that can help change the way researchers conduct social science research.
Modern-day approaches to understanding the quality of research and the careers of researchers are often outdated and filled with inequalities. These approaches […]
The European Research Center is funding the Global Contentious Politics Dataset, or GLOCON, a state-of-the-art automated database curating information on political events — including confrontations, political turbulence, strikes, rallies, and protests
This March, the Sage Politics team launches its first Politics Webinar Week. These webinars are free to access and will be delivered by contemporary politics experts —drawn from Sage’s team of authors and editors— who range from practitioners to instructors.
The U.S. National Science Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have teamed up present a 90-minute online session examining how to balance public access to federally funded research results with an equitable publishing environment.
