Designing, executing, and publishing replication research: Best practices for successfully taking replication ideas from conceptualization to publication

Abstract

Management scholars now recognize the important contribution that replication research can make to our field by examining the robustness of scientific findings and boundary conditions of previously tested relationships. Replications can also serve as an important tool for training doctoral students. Despite these strong arguments for conducting replication research, the field has been slow to respond to calls for increased use of replication. In part, this may be influenced by concerns that reviewers will discount the contribution of replication research. A less frequently discussed barrier to replication, however, is that due to a lack of replication training, engaging in this type of research constitutes embarking on unfamiliar territory. In this piece, I attempt to address the need for replication research training by providing researchers with a roadmap for taking replication ideas from conceptualization to publication, drawing on my own experience publishing replications and observations in the evolving replication literature.