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Abstract
Statistical power is the probability of accepting the null hypothesis when it is false (type II error). This research note reports the results of a statistical power analysis of international business research published in the Journal of International Business Studies, Management International Review, the Academy of Management Journal, and the Strategic Management Journal from 1990 to 1999. The results show that, although average statistical power is high compared with other disciplines, it is sufficient only for large effect sizes (ESs). Only studies published in the Journal of International Business Studies and the Academy of Management Journal achieve average statistical power levels that are sufficient for both medium and large ESs. Still the observed likelihood of committing type II errors in international business research is very high for small ESs (92%) and high for medium ESs (45%). In addition, statistical power is not explicitly mentioned or used by international business researchers, a weakness that this note is designed to change.
Journal of International Business Studies (2003) 34, 90-99. doi:10.1057/ palgrave.jibs.8400006
Introduction
The importance of statistical power - the probability of accepting the null hypothesis when it is false (type II error) - was explicitly stated 40 years ago (Cohen, 1962). Yet, in social science, the predominance of minimizing only type I errors - the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true - remains (Mone et al., 1996). Explicit statistical power considerations are still the exception (Mone et al., 1996), and insufficient statistical power has been a common finding across disciplines ever since the first review was published (Cohen, 1962; Brewer 1972; Chase and Tucker, 1975; Chase and Chase, 1976; Sawyer and Ball, 1981; Mazen et al., 1987; Baroudi and Orlikowski, 1989; Mone et al., 1996; Clark-Carter, 1997; Ferguson and Ketchen, 1999).
This study thus investigates the question of how international business research fares in relation to statistical power. Other disciplines, such as social psychology (Cohen, 1962; Clark-Carter, 1997), education (Brewer, 1972), communication (Chase and Tucker, 1975), applied psychology (Chase and Chase, 1976; Mone et al., 1996), marketing (Sawyer and Ball, 1981), information systems (Baroudi and Orlikowski, 1989) and management (Mazen et al., 1987; Mone et al., 1996; Ferguson and Ketchen, 1999) have all been reviewed, but international business research has not...