TY - JOUR

T1 - Creative Destruction in Science

AU - Tierney, Warren

AU - Hardy, Jay H.

AU - Ebersole, Charles R.

AU - Leavitt, Keith

AU - Viganola, Domenico

AU - Clemente, Elena Giulia

AU - Gordon, Michael

AU - Dreber, Anna

AU - Johannesson, Magnus

AU - Pfeiffer, Thomas

AU - Uhlmann, Eric Luis

AU - Abraham, Ajay T.

AU - Adamkovic, Matus

AU - Adam-Troian, Jais

AU - Anand, Rahul

AU - Arbeau, Kelly J.

AU - Awtrey, Eli C.

AU - Azar, Ofer H.

AU - Bahník, Štěpán

AU - Baník, Gabriel

AU - Barbosa Mendes, Ana

AU - Barger, Michael M.

AU - Baskin, Ernest

AU - Bavolar, Jozef

AU - Berkers, Ruud M.W.J.

AU - Besco, Randy

AU - Białek, Michał

AU - Bishop, Michael M.

AU - Bonache, Helena

AU - Boufkhed, Sabah

AU - Brandt, Mark J.

AU - Butterfield, Max E.

AU - Byrd, Nick

AU - Caton, Neil R.

AU - Ceynar, Michelle L.

AU - Corcoran, Mike

AU - Costello, Thomas H.

AU - Cramblet Alvarez, Leslie D.

AU - Cummins, Jamie

AU - Curry, Oliver S.

AU - Daniels, David P.

AU - Daskalo, Lea L.

AU - Daum-Avital, Liora

AU - Day, Martin V.

AU - Deeg, Matthew D.

AU - Dennehy, Tara C.

AU - Dietl, Erik

AU - Holding, Benjamin C.

AU - Pedersen, Mogens Jin

AU - Øverup, Camilla S.

AU - Hiring Decisions Forecasting Collaboration

PY - 2020/11

Y1 - 2020/11

N2 - Drawing on the concept of a gale of creative destruction in a capitalistic economy, we argue that initiatives to assess the robustness of findings in the organizational literature should aim to simultaneously test competing ideas operating in the same theoretical space. In other words, replication efforts should seek not just to support or question the original findings, but also to replace them with revised, stronger theories with greater explanatory power. Achieving this will typically require adding new measures, conditions, and subject populations to research designs, in order to carry out conceptual tests of multiple theories in addition to directly replicating the original findings. To illustrate the value of the creative destruction approach for theory pruning in organizational scholarship, we describe recent replication initiatives re-examining culture and work morality, working parents’ reasoning about day care options, and gender discrimination in hiring decisions. Significance statement: It is becoming increasingly clear that many, if not most, published research findings across scientific fields are not readily replicable when the same method is repeated. Although extremely valuable, failed replications risk leaving a theoretical void— reducing confidence the original theoretical prediction is true, but not replacing it with positive evidence in favor of an alternative theory. We introduce the creative destruction approach to replication, which combines theory pruning methods from the field of management with emerging best practices from the open science movement, with the aim of making replications as generative as possible. In effect, we advocate for a Replication 2.0 movement in which the goal shifts from checking on the reliability of past findings to actively engaging in competitive theory testing and theory building. Scientific transparency statement: The materials, code, and data for this article are posted publicly on the Open Science Framework, with links provided in the article.

AB - Drawing on the concept of a gale of creative destruction in a capitalistic economy, we argue that initiatives to assess the robustness of findings in the organizational literature should aim to simultaneously test competing ideas operating in the same theoretical space. In other words, replication efforts should seek not just to support or question the original findings, but also to replace them with revised, stronger theories with greater explanatory power. Achieving this will typically require adding new measures, conditions, and subject populations to research designs, in order to carry out conceptual tests of multiple theories in addition to directly replicating the original findings. To illustrate the value of the creative destruction approach for theory pruning in organizational scholarship, we describe recent replication initiatives re-examining culture and work morality, working parents’ reasoning about day care options, and gender discrimination in hiring decisions. Significance statement: It is becoming increasingly clear that many, if not most, published research findings across scientific fields are not readily replicable when the same method is repeated. Although extremely valuable, failed replications risk leaving a theoretical void— reducing confidence the original theoretical prediction is true, but not replacing it with positive evidence in favor of an alternative theory. We introduce the creative destruction approach to replication, which combines theory pruning methods from the field of management with emerging best practices from the open science movement, with the aim of making replications as generative as possible. In effect, we advocate for a Replication 2.0 movement in which the goal shifts from checking on the reliability of past findings to actively engaging in competitive theory testing and theory building. Scientific transparency statement: The materials, code, and data for this article are posted publicly on the Open Science Framework, with links provided in the article.

KW - Conceptual replication

KW - Cultural differences

KW - Direct replication

KW - Falsification

KW - Gender discrimination

KW - Hiring decisions

KW - Protestant work ethic

KW - Replication

KW - Theory pruning

KW - Theory testing

KW - Work values

KW - Work-family conflict

U2 - 10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.07.002

DO - 10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.07.002

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85091752463

VL - 161

SP - 291

EP - 309

JO - Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

JF - Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

SN - 0749-5978

ER -