Mapping the Murky Waters: The Promise of Integrative Experiment Design

by Abdullah Almaatouq (Guest Author) My PhD journey began with a clear vision: to unravel the interplay between social network structures and their collective outcomes. I was particularly interested in the collective intelligence arising in those structures. With several projects already underway on this topic, I felt prepared. Perhaps optimistically,Read More

Teaching Generalizability to Both Undergraduate and Doctoral Students

by Lori Rosenkopf Determining how and when empirical results are generalizable is critical to increase the impact of academic research. It is also a valuable thinking skill for non-academics. Hence, we need to build this skill into our educational offerings at all levels. Since doctoral students are academics in training,Read More

Novelty is Overrated

by Connie Helfat Murray Davis’ classic 1971 article “That’s Interesting!” asserts that a theory must be interesting to be considered great. He goes on to say that all interesting theories challenge routinely held assumptions. By implication, counterintuitive theories, which by their definition deviate from common assumptions, are far more likelyRead More

Are Management Scholars the Best Scholars in the History of the World?

by Myles Shaver I ask this question because the requirement or norm of many of our high-quality journals that all papers must advance a novel theoretical contribution implies the answer is yes. This requirement or norm means the first test of a theory (in the case of an empirical paperRead More

From Quasi-Replication to Generalization: Making “Basis Variables” Visible

by Lori Rosenkopf and Dan Levinthal  A persistent challenge in social science research is understanding whether and when empirical results generalize beyond a specific study’s sample or context. In 2016, Rich Bettis, Connie Helfat and Myles Shaver produced a special issue of Strategic Management Journal containing several “quasi-replications” which examinedRead More