Opportunity to improve: the first large scale empirical analysis about the replication of system dynamics studies

Grösser, Stefan; Gabriel, Joanna (2014). Opportunity to improve: the first large scale empirical analysis about the replication of system dynamics studies In: 32nd International Conference of the System Dynamics Society. System Dynamics Society

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Organizational and management sciences have continuously fail to replicate existing studies. Moreover, replication the hallmark of scientific inquiry is not investigated adequately. The few existing studies examine pertinent questions about scientific integrity since errors in publications are more commonplace rather than single instances. Since computational simulation modeling is increasingly employed in studies in organizational and management sciences, we investigate the replicability of simulation studies, especially of the system dynamics type. Based on a sample of 105 studies in scholarly management and organizational journals we conclude that fundamental limitations exist in replicating existing models. Only in 20% of the cases, is an identical replication possible. Often the necessary details to replicate the simulation are not available or the available details are incomplete. Most often, it seems, this incompleteness is a surprise to the original authors as well. We provide suggestions to improve the degree of replicability to ensure full replicability is a standard for system dynamics simulations models in organizational and management sciences.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Division/Institute:	Business School
Name:	Grösser, Stefan0000-0003-3412-2711 and Gabriel, Joanna
Publisher:	System Dynamics Society
Submitter:	Service Account
Date Deposited:	17 Sep 2019 13:41
Last Modified:	18 Dec 2020 13:28
Related URLs:	Organisation
Uncontrolled Keywords:	replication, organizational research, simulation method, system dynamics
ARBOR DOI:	10.24451/arbor.7734
URI:	https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/7734