Navigating the validity tradeoffs of entrepreneurship research experiments: A systematic review and best-practice suggestions

Abstract

Second, and to demonstrate that overcoming these challenges is not a trivial task, we conduct a structured literature review of the external and construct validation strategies deployed in a comprehensive corpus of 144 relevant articles published in both entrepreneurship-focused journals and broader generalist journals from the applied behavioral and social sciences. Among the most positive elements emerging from our analyses, we note upward trends in the mobilization of pilot tests, in the conduct of multiple experiments within single papers as well as in the use of parallel studies using different data collection methods. We also observe increased efforts to explain the practical relevance of experimental findings. To our surprise, however, our analyses uncover downward trends in the mobilization of pre-tests to examine the research material's external validity and representativeness, as well as the continued publication of studies that do not report empirical evidence regarding their focal manipulations' construct validity. This is concerning. Such practices undermine these experiments' abilities to yield convincing evidence in support of their theorized causal effects – and for what these imply for fostering entrepreneurial action.