IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/jintbs/v41y2010i9p1581-1588.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effect sizes and the interpretation of research results in international business

Author

Listed:
  • Paul D Ellis

    (Department of Management & Marketing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong)

Abstract

Journal editors and academy presidents are increasingly calling on researchers to evaluate the substantive, as opposed to the statistical, significance of their results. To measure the extent to which these calls have been heeded, I aggregated the meta-analytically derived effect size estimates obtained from 965 individual samples. I then surveyed 204 studies published in the Journal of International Business Studies. I found that the average effect size in international business research is small, and that most published studies lack the statistical power to detect such effects reliably. I also found that many authors confuse statistical with substantive significance when interpreting their research results. These practices have likely led to unacceptably high Type II error rates and invalid inferences regarding real-world effects. By emphasizing p values over their effect size estimates, researchers are under-selling their results and settling for contributions that are less than what they really have to offer. In view of this, I offer four recommendations for improving research and reporting practices.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul D Ellis, 2010. "Effect sizes and the interpretation of research results in international business," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 41(9), pages 1581-1588, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jintbs:v:41:y:2010:i:9:p:1581-1588
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v41/n9/pdf/jibs201039a.pdf
    File Function: Link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v41/n9/full/jibs201039a.html
    File Function: Link to full text HTML
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kim, Jae H. & Ji, Philip Inyeob, 2015. "Significance testing in empirical finance: A critical review and assessment," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-14.
    2. Eisend, Martin & Tarrahi, Farid, 2014. "Meta-analysis selection bias in marketing research," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 317-326.
    3. Dimitratos, Pavlos & Buck, Trevor & Fletcher, Margaret & Li, Nicolas, 2016. "The motivation of international entrepreneurship: The case of Chinese transnational entrepreneurs," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 1103-1113.
    4. Wulf, David & Bertsch, Valentin, 2016. "A natural language generation approach to support understanding and traceability of multi-dimensional preferential sensitivity analysis in multi-criteria decision making," MPRA Paper 75025, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Robert Rieg, 2018. "Tasks, interaction and role perception of management accountants: evidence from Germany," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 183-220, August.
    6. Xiaohui Liu & Jiangyong Lu & Seong-jin Choi, 2014. "Bridging Knowledge Gaps: Returnees and Reverse Knowledge Spillovers from Chinese Local Firms to Foreign Firms," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 253-276, April.
    7. Zhan, Ge, 2013. "Statistical power in international business research: Study levels and data types," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 678-686.
    8. Phookan, Himadree & Sharma, Revti Raman, 2021. "Subsidiary power, cultural intelligence and interpersonal knowledge transfer between subsidiaries within the multinational enterprise," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(4).
    9. Wu, Yan & Yang, Yong & Mickiewicz, Tomasz, 2023. "Corruption, the digital sectors, and the profitability of foreign subsidiaries in emerging markets," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    10. Venkateswaran, Ramya Tarakad & George, Rejie, 2020. "When does culture matter? A multilevel study on the role of situational moderators," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 99-122.
    11. Gupta, Deepika R. & Veliyath, Rajaram & George, Rejie, 2018. "Influence of national culture on IPO activity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 226-246.
    12. Crespo, Cátia Fernandes & Lages, Luis Filipe & Crespo, Nuno Fernandes, 2020. "Improving subsidiaries' innovation through knowledge inflows from headquarters and peer subsidiaries," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 26(4).
    13. Michael Nippa & Jeffrey J Reuer, 2019. "On the future of international joint venture research," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(4), pages 555-597, June.
    14. Gary Knight & Agnieszka Chidlow & Dana Minbaeva, 2022. "Methodological fit for empirical research in international business: A contingency framework," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(1), pages 39-52, February.
    15. Peter H Sandal & David Kim & Leonie Fiebig & Andrew Winnard & Nick Caplan & David A Green & Tobias Weber, 2020. "Effectiveness of nutritional countermeasures in microgravity and its ground-based analogues to ameliorate musculoskeletal and cardiopulmonary deconditioning–A Systematic Review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-20, June.
    16. Joern Block & Christopher Hansen & Holger Steinmetz, 2023. "Are Family Firms Doing More Innovation Output With Less Innovation Input? A Replication and Extension," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(4), pages 1496-1520, July.
    17. Chetty, Sylvie & Johanson, Martin & Martín Martín, Oscar, 2014. "Speed of internationalization: Conceptualization, measurement and validation," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 633-650.
    18. Wang, Danny T. & Gu, Flora F. & Tse, David K. & Yim, Chi Kin (Bennett), 2013. "When does FDI matter? The roles of local institutions and ethnic origins of FDI," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 450-465.
    19. Child, John & Narooz, Rose & Hsieh, Linda & Elbanna, Said & Karmowska, Joanna & Marinova, Svetla & Puthusserry, Pushyarag & Tsai, Terence & Zhang, Yunlu, 2022. "External resource provision and the international performance of SMEs – A contextual analysis," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 28(3).
    20. Sharma, Revti Raman, 2019. "Cultural Intelligence and Institutional Success: The Mediating Role of Relationship Quality," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 1-1.
    21. Gyeongcheol Cho & Christopher Schlaegel & Heungsun Hwang & Younyoung Choi & Marko Sarstedt & Christian M. Ringle, 2022. "Integrated Generalized Structured Component Analysis: On the Use of Model Fit Criteria in International Management Research," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 62(4), pages 569-609, August.
    22. Olivier Bertrand & Marie-Ann Betschinger & Caterina Moschieri, 2021. "Are firms with foreign CEOs better citizens? A study of the impact of CEO foreignness on corporate social performance," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(3), pages 525-543, April.
    23. Paolo Roffia & Virginia Simón-Moya & Javier Sendra García, 2022. "Board of director attributes: effects on financial performance in SMEs," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 1141-1172, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:jintbs:v:41:y:2010:i:9:p:1581-1588. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.