Romer (1993) suggests that universities should undertake experiments that would test the value of mandatory attendance for economics courses. He presents evidence showing that those who attended his classes received higher grades on his exams and concluded that “an important part of the...

What evidence exists on the value of formal planning for strategic decision-making in marketing? This paper reviews the evidence. This includes two tests of face validity. First, we use the market test: Are formal procedures used for marketing planning? Next, we examine expert prescriptions:...

Intentional Changes is an important book. It suggests different approaches to the way in which we try to implement change. It provides, as do most important books, much that you will disagree with. Tough’s conclusions are based on studies that are likely to be unknown to you. The book is...

As Cicchetti indicates, agreement among reviewers is not high. This conclusion is empirically supported by Fiske and Fogg (1990), who reported that two independent reviews of the same papers typically had no critical point in common. Does this imply that journal editors should strive for a high...

My review of empirical research on scientific publication led to the following conclusions. Three criteria are useful for identifying whether findings are important: replication, validity, and usefulness. A fourth criterion, surprise, applies in some situations. Based on these criteria,...

In forecasting demand for expensive consumer goods, direct questioning of potential consumers about their future purchasing plans has had considerable predictive success [1, 2, 4]. Any attempt to apply such 'intention to purchase' methods to forecast demand for proposed products or services must...

Valid predictions for the direction of nonresponse bias were obtained from subjective estimates and extrapolations in an analysis of mail survey data from published studies. For estimates of the magnitude of bias, the use of extrapolations led to substantial improvements over a strategy of not...

Hartley, Trueman and Meadows [3] contribute useful evidence on whether scientists can gain prestige by writing in a manner that is difficult to read. This has been called the bafflegab theory by some. They concluded that the evidence was not strong. This comment examines some of the conclusions...

Sports and war metaphors abound in business today. For example, one management book, Thunder in the Sky, by Thomas Cleary, opens with a Chinese saying that translates: “The marketplace is a battlefield. The Asian people view success in the business world as tantamount to victory in battle.”...

Recently I completed a review of the empirical research on scientific journals (Armstrong 1982). This review provided evidence for an “author’s formula,” a set of rules that authors can use to increase the likelihood and speed of acceptance of their manuscripts. Authors should: (1) not...