Building knowledge by mapping model uncertainty in six studies of social and financial performance

Luca Berchicci and Andrew A. King

Strategic Management Journal, 2022, vol. 43, issue 7, 1319-1346

Abstract: Research Summary Many scholars bemoan the difficulty of learning from individual research reports. Replication is often prescribed as a salve, but few replications are conducted, and even fewer allow the formation of a coherent understanding. In this article, we propose a complement to replication that emphasizes the mapping of epistemic uncertainties. We demonstrate our approach by exploring the results of six related studies on the link between social and financial performance. We show that our method allows the synthesis of seemingly conflicting findings, and we propose that it should be used proactively, prior to replication, to speed the growth of knowledge. Managerial Summary Any single empirical study provides a weak basis for inference. As a result, scholars advocate repeated analysis of important issues, but evidence from replications can be hard to integrate into a coherent understanding. For example, six important studies of the link between corporate social and financial performance have been published in this journal, but their conflicting results have defied integration. We show that a new approach to empirical research allows their reconciliation: all six suggest that across firms, social and financial performance are correlated but that improvements in social performance seldom precede increased financial performance.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3374

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:bla:stratm:v:43:y:2022:i:7:p:1319-1346

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0143-2095

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Strategic Management Journal from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().