When Shooting for the Stars Becomes Aiming for Asterisks: P-Hacking in Family Business Research

Jasper Brinkerink

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2023, vol. 47, issue 2, 304-343

Abstract: As a side-effect of increasing publication pressures, academics may be tempted to engage in p -hacking: a questionable research practice involving the iterative and incompletely-disclosed adjustment of data collection, analysis, and/or reporting, until nonsignificant results turn significant. Prior studies in entrepreneurship-related disciplines carry the implicit notion that p -hacking is predominantly an issue in top-tier journals, where incentives to do so may be highest. This study investigates p -hacking in the family business literature, a research field with roots in the broader entrepreneurship and small business literatures, and in which discourse increasingly takes place in both dedicated field journals and in the top-tier outlets in entrepreneurship and management. Analyses of p -values published in these field- and top-tier journals allow for a comparison of the prevalence and correlates of p -hacking at these different levels of prestige. The findings suggest that p -hacking is an issue of substantial—and statistically indistinguishable—magnitudes in both field- and top-tier journals. We further observe negative correlations of female authorship and employer prestige with p -hacking, where the latter is stronger in field versus top-tier journals. Implications of these findings, their limitations, and some suggestions going forward are discussed, with particular attention for the promise of preregistration and registered reports.

Keywords: p-hacking; questionable research practices; family business research; meta-science (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10422587211050354 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:entthe:v:47:y:2023:i:2:p:304-343

DOI: 10.1177/10422587211050354

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().