Measuring and testing change in strategic management research

This paper reviews some critical issues associated with measuring and testing change and then reports on how strategy researchers have addressed those matters. We first discuss three key methodological requirements: reliability assumptions of change variables, correlations between the change variable and its initial measure, and selection of unbiased measurement alternatives. Next, we present data from a content analysis of 126 change studies which suggest that strategy researchers tend not to recognize those requirements. Indeed, the typical approach used to measure and test change (as a simple different between two measures of the same variable) is usually inappropriate and could lead to inaccurate findings and flawed conclusions. We conclude by offering suggestions for how change can be studied more rigorously.