“Can’t Believe It" 2

My earlier post – “can’t believe it” – triggered some bipolar comments (and further denials); also to what extent this behaviour can be observed among academics studying strategy. And, regarding the latter, I think: yes.
The denial of research findings obviously relates to confirmation bias (although it is not the same thing). Confirmation bias is a tricky thing: we – largely without realising it – are much more prone to notice things that confirm our prior beliefs. Things that go counter to them often escape our attention.

Things get particularly nasty – I agree – when we do notice the facts that defy our beliefs but we still don’t like them. Even if they are generated by solid research, we’d still like to find a reason to deny them, and therefore see people start to question the research itself vehemently (if not aggressively and emotionally).

It becomes yet more worrying to me – on a personal level – if even academic researchers themselves display such tendencies – and they do. What do you think a researcher in corporate social responsibility will be most critical of: a study showing it increases firm performance, or a study showing that it does not? Whose methodology do you think a researcher on gender biases will be more inclined to challenge: a research project showing no pay differences or a study showing that women are underpaid relative to men?

It’s only human and – slightly unfortunately – researchers are also human. And researchers are also reviewers and gate-keepers of the papers of other academics that are submitted for possible publication in academic journals. They bring their biases with them when determining what gets published and what doesn’t.

And there is some evidence of that: studies showing weak relationships between social performance and financial performance are less likely to make it into a management journal as compared to a finance journal (where more researchers are inclined to believe that social performance is not what a firm should care about), and perhaps vice versa.

No research is perfect, but the bar is often much higher for research generating uncomfortable findings. I have little doubt that reviewers and readers are much more forgiving when it comes to the methods of research that generates nicely belief-confirming results. Results we don’t like are much less likely to find their way into an academic journal. Which means that, in the end, research may end up being biased and misleading.