FAQs

The Advancement of Replications Initiative in Management (ARIM) supports the conducting and publishing of systematic replication efforts by early-stage doctoral students and their mentors in the field of management. Below are frequently asked questions (FAQs) about our initiative.

A replication study analyzes new empirical data collected using the identical (or nearly identical) research design of the replicated study. The objective of the replication is to gain additional insights about the phenomenon investigated based on comparing and integrating the results of both studies. Thus, replication studies add “new observations to the extant stock of findings” (p. 219; Dau, Santangelo, & Witteloostuijn, 2021). An exact replication attempts to match the replicated study in any relevant detail. Constructive replications attempt to also match the replicated study except for one carefully selected and focused difference in any of the following areas: Methodology (i.e., sampling, measurement, coding, analyzing), Boundary Conditions (i.e., population, empirical context), and Model (i.e., mediators, moderators, functional form of relationships). In the field of management, the shared consensus is that replications are essential to theory building and scientific progress. At the same time, however, there is so far limited consensus and established guidance on when to conduct which type of replication study and what makes a such replication valuable.  It is an explicit objective of the ARIM initiative to contribute to the development of such guidelines for replication studies.

2. Why focus on doctoral students and their mentors?

Conducting a replication study is a unique and underused opportunity for teaching doctoral students: (A) fundamentals of research design and execution and (B) how to conduct replications and obtain additional insights from integrating the results of the original and replication (Schwab et al., 2023). A potential additional benefit is the opportunity to publish replication results and to help address the dearth of replication studies in management. Replications are already being used for doctoral education in many other fields of science, including archeology, chemistry, economics, operations management, political science, psychology, and sociology (Everett & Earp, 2015; Fecher et al., 2016; Frank & Saxe, 2012; Kane, 1984; Marwick et al., 2020; Sodhi & Tang, 2014). 

3. What is a systematic replication effort?

Systematic replication efforts aim to coordinate a set of replication studies to enable a more comprehensive understanding of a phenomenon. Whereas a single replication tends to make incremental contributions, a large number of carefully coordinated replications combined promises more substantial contributions. ARIM aspires to coordinate such systematic multiple replications among cohorts of student/mentor teams. Systematic replication efforts provide opportunities for doctoral students/mentor teams also to learn from each other. Finally, the set of coordinated replications creates opportunities to publish their findings in a single publication targeted at top-tier journals.

4. How will ARIM support systematic replication efforts?

ARIM will adopt a big team science approach to support systematic replication efforts. Broadly, this involves creating and providing the infrastructure that enables student/mentor teams to engage in coordinated replications of studies identified as worthy of such coordinated replication efforts. This infrastructure will include identifying and providing resources in the form of instructions, references, and research expertise to support doctoral student replications in our discipline (see Castille, Köhler, & O’Boyle, 2022; Kreamer, Cobb, Cogswell, & Castille, 2024). The provided infrastructure will support (i) identifying promising targets for collective replication efforts, (ii) recruiting, coordinating, and supporting the execution of replication studies by various teams of researchers, (iii) facilitating the analysis, integration, interpretation, and publication of results obtained by the multiple replication studies.

5. How is a replication study different from a ‘reproduction’ study?

“Reproducibility” involves re-examining published datasets or summary statistics to check if some claim is supported by the authors’ statistics (see Bergh et al., 2017). This can be a literal reproduction whereby the same analytical approach is adopted. Additionally, the team can execute a constructive reproduction whereby different and potentially more powerful, sophisticated, and/or more appropriate analytical techniques are applied (Köhler & Cortina, 2021, 2023). Although reproducibility studies are not a primary focus of replications, which include the collection of new data, probing for the reproducibility of the results reported in the replicated study can be helpful steps during the interpretation of observed differences in results between the replicated and the replication studies.

6. What is ARIM?

ARIM is an acronym for Advancement of Replications Initiative in Management. ARIM's purpose is to promote the conduct of replication studies in management and organization sciences. ARIM was created by Andreas Schwab, Associate Professor at Iowa State University (Iowa, USA), Christopher Castille, Associate Professor at Nicholls State University (Louisiana, USA), and William Obenauer, Assistant Professor at The University of Maine (Maine, USA).

7. How can I contribute to ARIM?

If you are interested in supporting and/or conducting replication studies, please fill out this short form - https://iastatebusiness.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1GPjk5gNVsdQKWy.

We’ll get in touch soon!.

8. How can I get started on replications?

First, have a look at the papers we have listed here - https://www.arimweb.org/resources/how-to - to understand the purpose and types of replication studies.

Second, review some of the papers we have listed here - https://www.arimweb.org/resources/exemplars - to understand how others have conducted replications.

Third, select a paper you would like to replicate. Besides your area of interest, also consider whether the original study has transparently reported the study design, sample, data collection, analytical procedures, and results.