| Course | GB793 Advanced Topics in Management |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 6 |
| Paper type | Seminar reflection |
| Length | About 840 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GB793 Unit 6
One Word Split Into Three: A Unit 6 Seminar Reflection on Replication in Strategy Research
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GB793: Advanced Topics in Management
Unit 6 Seminar Reflection
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The classmates are composite; the studies discussed are real.
The Moment My Claim Met Resistance
About twenty minutes into the session, I said something close to this: "The replication crisis is about small lab experiments with flexible procedures. Strategy research uses archival data from Compustat and public filings. Anyone can download the same data, so there is nothing to fail to replicate." I said it with some confidence. A classmate who had worked as a research analyst before the program answered that I was right about the data being public and wrong about what followed from it, and she cited a study I had not read.
Three Terms the Session Forced Apart
By the end of the hour, the group had separated three things I had been calling by one name. Reproduction means obtaining the same results from the same data with the same methods: if I take a published study's data and run its models, do I get its numbers? Replication means testing the same hypothesis on new data, such as a different time period or sample. Generalization means asking whether a finding holds in a different setting, such as another industry or country. My claim had been about the first. The archival nature of strategy data does make reproduction possible in principle. It says nothing about the other two.
The Evidence Raised in the Room
My classmate's study was Bergh et al. (2017). They tried to reproduce the findings of 88 articles published in the Strategic Management Journal, using only the data reported in the articles themselves, such as correlation matrices and descriptive statistics. About 70 percent of the articles did not report enough information to allow an independent test. Among those that could be retested, almost a third reported hypotheses as statistically significant that were no longer significant when reproduced, and the errors ran far more often from significant to not significant than the reverse.
That was a direct hit on my claim. The data being public did not mean the published results could be recovered. Incomplete reporting and errors in disclosure meant that most findings could not be checked at all, and a substantial share of those that could be checked did not hold up.
Public data made reproduction possible in principle, but it did not make published results reproducible in practice.
On replication with new data, another classmate pointed to the Strategic Management Journal editorial by Bettis et al. (2016), which argued that replication studies were rare in strategy, that journals had discouraged them as unoriginal and that the field needed to publish them. Its point was that strategy's problem is not a pattern of failed replications but an absence of attempts, which means no one knows how many published findings would survive. A third classmate added that even when replications are run, judging them is not simple: Simonsohn (2015) proposed asking whether a replication rules out an effect large enough for the original study to have detected, rather than only whether it reached significance.
What I Gave Up
I gave up the claim that replication is not strategy's problem. On reproduction, the evidence shows a serious problem, larger than I had assumed and caused by the reporting practices of the field I am entering. On replication, the evidence shows a gap: few attempts, and no reason to assume the findings would pass. I also gave up the idea that archival data protect against flexibility. Researchers working with archival data still choose samples, variables, time windows and models, and those choices can produce the same kinds of problems as flexible laboratory procedures.
What I Still Maintain
What I still maintain is narrower. The particular problems that troubled social psychology, such as small samples and experimenter effects in staged experiments, are less common in strategy, which usually works with large archival samples. That difference is real. It means strategy's credibility problem has a different shape: less about chance findings in tiny samples and more about undisclosed analytic choices and incomplete reporting. My revised position is that strategy has a replication problem of its own kind, and that the first step is reporting enough for others to reproduce what was done. In my own dissertation, that means publishing my code and my variable definitions, which I had not planned to do.
Looking back, the error in my opening claim was treating access to data as if it were the same as transparency about method. Two researchers can download identical Compustat files and still produce different results if they define a variable differently, drop different outliers or choose different years, and a reader cannot tell which choices were made unless the article reports them. I had thought of archival research as protected by its data. The session showed me that its protection depends on its reporting.
References
Bergh, D. D., Sharp, B. M., Aguinis, H., & Li, M. (2017). Is there a credibility crisis in strategic management research? Evidence on the reproducibility of study findings. Strategic Organization, 15(3), 423-436. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476127017701076
Bettis, R. A., Helfat, C. E., & Shaver, J. M. (2016). The necessity, logic, and forms of replication. Strategic Management Journal, 37(11), 2193-2203. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2580
Simonsohn, U. (2015). Small telescopes: Detectability and the evaluation of replication results. Psychological Science, 26(5), 559-569. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614567341
The Purdue Global GB793 Unit 6 instructions
Unit 6 in GB793 wants an account of a seminar exchange that moved a position you held about research. Quote your claim as you made it. Record the challenge, including the evidence your classmate used. If the discussion separated ideas you had run together, define each one clearly. Apply the distinctions to the evidence raised, saying what each study shows and does not show. Then state what you gave up and why. State what you still maintain, with the reason it survives the challenge. Close with how the change affects your own research practice. Write in the first person, refer to classmates by role and keep the reflection to about 600 to 800 words. Cite the studies discussed accurately, since a reflection on research credibility is itself judged on care with sources.
How the GB 793 Unit 6 example is put together
The reflection opens with the candidate's spoken claim that archival data leave nothing to fail to replicate, and a former research analyst's reply. Three terms are defined: reproduction, replication and generalization. Bergh and colleagues' reproduction study is described with its 88 articles, the 70 percent that reported too little to test and the third of retestable hypotheses that lost significance, and the highlighted sentence states the lesson. Bettis and colleagues' editorial supplies the point that replications in strategy are rare rather than failed, and Simonsohn adds a standard for judging them. The candidate gives up the original claim, keeps a narrower one about the shape of strategy's problem and commits to publishing code and variable definitions.
Reading the GB793 Unit 6 grading rubric
GB793 instructors mark the reflection on how clearly reasoning changed. Quoting the opening claim matters, since only then can a reader see how far it moved. The challenge itself should be reported with its evidence, not summarized as a disagreement. Defining distinctions the discussion produced, and applying them to the evidence, is weighted heavily. Accurate reporting of the studies' findings matters, since this unit concerns research credibility. Separating what was given up from what is still maintained shows judgment. A commitment that changes the student's own practice demonstrates the reflection had consequences. First-person voice and attention to the argument over the personalities are expected. Citations to Bergh and colleagues and the replication editorial should be precise.
GB793 Unit 6 help from the desk
Many GB793 reflections summarize a lively discussion without stating what the writer believed before it. Others concede everything, which reads as performance rather than thought. Key distinctions, such as reproduction against replication, are often blurred, so the evidence cannot be placed. Students frequently misreport the findings of studies they heard about in the session. The connection to the writer's own research is usually missing. Quote your claim, record the evidence that challenged it, define the distinctions, report each study accurately, separate what you abandoned from what you keep and name a change to your own practice. If your seminar took up another methods debate, we can draft a reflection from your notes.
Get a GB793 Unit 6 example written to your instructions
Tell us what your Unit 6 session debated, your starting position and the challenge that changed your mind, then attach the reflection guidelines and rubric. You will get a reflection organized around the distinction your session produced, conceding precisely and defending what survives. First custom samples are free of charge and normally return within 24-48h. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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GB793 Unit 6 questions, answered
What if the session ran as a written task instead?
Without a live discussion, a reading or prompt from the instructor plays the classmate's part, and the opening paragraph names it. Organizing around a distinction still works, because written prompts often push toward the same conceptual split a live session would. Graders look for the same evidence of changed thinking in both formats, so shape and length stay close.
Is Bergh and colleagues' study itself a replication?
It is a reproduction exercise: the authors recomputed results from information published in the articles rather than collecting new data. That distinction is the reflection's whole point. Evidence from reproduction attempts speaks to reporting and computation, while replication with new samples speaks to whether a relationship holds, and the two can come out differently for the same study.
Why does the writer keep part of the original claim?
Because the evidence supports it. Strategy research has produced few replication failures largely because it has attempted few replications, which differs from psychology, where many large attempts failed. Keeping that argued remainder shows the writer weighed the challenge instead of reversing wholesale, and it leads to a more precise recommendation than conceding everything would.
Where can I find a free GB793 Unit 6 sample paper?
A complete GB793 Unit 6 seminar reflection appears here, following how evidence on reproducibility in strategy research changed a candidate's view of replication.
What is the difference between reproduction and replication?
Reproduction means obtaining the same results from the same data and methods. Replication means testing the same hypothesis on new data, such as a different sample or period.