Building Knowledge by Mapping Model Uncertainty in Six Studies of Social and Financial Performance

Abstract

Many scholars bemoan the difficulty of learning from individual research reports. Replication is often prescribed as a salve, but few replications are conducted, and even fewer allow the formation of a coherent understanding. In this article, we propose a complement to replication that emphasizes the mapping of epistemic uncertainties. We demonstrate our approach by exploring the results of six related studies on the link between social and financial performance. We show that our method allows the synthesis of seemingly conflicting findings, and we propose that it should be used proactively, prior to replication, to speed the growth of knowledge.

Keywords: social and financial performance, research methods, epistemology, model uncertainty, model selection

JEL Classification: Q51, D22, L25, C11, C18