Replication research's disturbing trend
Section snippets
Definitions and method
The definitions of the central terms in this study are in line with those employed by H&A (1994, p. 236). A replication is defined as “a duplication of a previously published empirical study that is concerned with assessing whether similar findings can be obtained upon repeating the study.” Likewise, a replication with extension is “a duplication of a previously published empirical research project that serves to investigate the ability to generalize earlier research findings.” Note that this
Frequency of replications
Table 1 shows the present findings on the publication incidence of replication research in marketing, and compares them with those of H&A. Whereas H&A estimate that an average of 2.4% of empirical research papers published in JM, JMR, and JCR for 1974–1989 are replications with extensions–a figure they regarded as too low–the average for these same three journals for 1990–2004 has fallen to 1.2% (i.e., only 16 extensions out of 1389 empirical articles). This downward trend applies to each of
Practical solutions to the lack of replications
To encourage the growth of replications in marketing's empirical literature, the data and methods used in the original studies should be made available on the Internet concurrent with a paper's publication. Traditionally, supporting information of this nature has been difficult to obtain (see Hubbard and Little, 1997). This procedure may require some effort by the authors, but the effort is well worth it. Gleditsch et al. (2003), in their analysis of 416 papers published in the Journal of Peace
Conclusions
Given the favorable reaction over the past decade to calls for more replications, the initial expectation was that a greater frequency of them would be published in JM, JMR, and JCR for the period 1990–2004 than were found for 1974–1989. However, the percentage of replications was published over the latter period dropped by 50%.
A number of strategies to promote replication research can be endorsed. These include:
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Using footnotes to direct readers to data and methods (in enough detail to permit
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