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Experiments in Strategy Research: A Critical Review and Future Research

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Article in Journal of Management · August 2021

DOI: 10.1177/01492063211044416
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EXPERIMENTS IN STRATEGY RESEARCH 1
Experiments in Strategy Research: A Critical Review and Future Research Opportunities
Mark T. Bolinger
Walker College of Business, Appalachian State University
4071 Peacock Hall
Boone, NC 28608, USA
Phone: 208-251-6497
Email: bolingermt@appstate.edu
Matthew A. Josefy
Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
1309 E. Tenth Street, Suite 3100
Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Phone: 812-855-3683
Email: mjosefy@iu.edu
Regan Stevenson
Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
1309 E. Tenth Street, Suite 3100
Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Phone: 812-855-2182
Email: rstev@indiana.edu
Michael A. Hitt
Mays School of Business, Texas A&M University
210 Olsen Boulevard
College Station, Texas 77843, USA
Phone: 979-845-4851
Email: mhitt@mays.tamu.edu
Acknowledgements: The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the thoughtful responses
from 10 prominent scholars who helped us further understand the particular challenges of using
experiments in strategic management, insightful feedback on previous versions of the manuscript
from Mike Withers, Christina Carnes, and Jeff Covin, helpful comments on the Best Practices Guide
from Jeff Gish, Emily Neubert, and June Ryu, additional assistance from Tammy Rader and
Amanda Tolen, and very helpful direction from anonymous reviewers. Regan Stevenson also
acknowledges research support from the John and Donna Shoemaker Fellowship.
In-Press at Journal of Management

Please cite as: Bolinger, M., Josefy, M., Stevenson, R., and Hitt, M. (2022). Experiments in
Strategy Research: A Critical Review and Future Research Opportunities. Journal of
Management. doi. 10.1177/01492063211044416
For published version, please check: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/

full/10.1177/01492063211044416
ABSTRACT
We review extant experimental work in strategic management and argue that experiments
constitute an underused methodology that has significant potential. We examine and categorize
179 experiments from 119 published articles over a 20-year period, delineating the contributions
of these experiments to the strategic management literature. In doing so, we identify topic areas
in which experiments have been effectively deployed, as well as several literature streams that
have a limited amount of prior experimental research. We discuss specific challenges of using
experiments in strategy research, especially given its strong focus on the firm-level of analysis.
We also emphasize approaches for how experiments can be instrumental in extending
management theories and accelerating behavioral microfoundations of strategy research. In light
of past contributions and gaps, we discuss specific opportunities and means of designing
innovative experiments, propose novel potential research questions, and provide a best practices
methodological guide which scholars can use when considering experimental designs. Overall,
our work documents experimental research and provides a methodological practicum, thereby
offering a platform for future experiment-based research in strategic management.
Keywords: experiments, strategic management, review, research design; corporate social
responsibility; cooperative strategy; mergers & acquisitions; alliances

EXPERIMENTS IN STRATEGY RESEARCH: A CRITICAL REVIEW AND FUTURE
RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES
Identifying the antecedents of firm performance is a primary goal of strategic
management research; put another way, strategy scholars study what causes some firms to be
more successful than others. Accordingly, endogeneity in strategic management has historically
been considered a “pervasive problem” due to the inherent complexity of organizations and the
discipline’s focus on field studies (Aguinis, Edwards & Bradley, 2017; Busenbark, Gamache,
Yoon, Certo, & Withers, 2019). Although researchers routinely take great methodological care to
control for or rule out the potential for endogeneity (Hamilton & Nickerson, 2003; Hill, Johnson,
Greco, O’Boyle, & Walter, 2021; Semadeni, Withers, & Certo, 2014), experimental
methodologies remain uncommon in strategic management research despite being an excellent
option for isolating causal relationships (Hill et al., 2021).
Frequently, strategic management scholars seek to identify contexts that approximate
experimental conditions (e.g., Grigoriou & Rothaermel, 2017) and carefully explain how their
research design compares to the ideal experiment (e.g., Angrist & Pischke, 2010; Berchicci,
Dowell & King, 2017; Cummings & Knott, 2018, Rawley, Godart, & Shipilov, 2018). Yet,
experiments (ideal or otherwise) remain rare in strategic management research. There are at least
three reasons that greater adoption of experimental methodologies could be beneficial for the
field. First, strategy scholars frequently conclude their papers by documenting an agenda for
future experimental work that would meaningfully advance their line of inquiry. For example,
this is evident in strategic leadership research, where scholars have noted that archival
approaches could be augmented by experimental studies. Tang, Mack, and Chen (2018:1384)
state: “there might be some noise associated with these archival-based measures. We encourage
future research to employ more direct measures in surveys and experimental studies to confirm
and extend our findings.” They are among many prominent scholars who have called for more
strategy experiments to extend their work (Aggarwal, Posen & Workiewicz, 2017; Bettis, 1991;
Powell, 2011; Powell, Lovallo & Fox, 2011; Shepherd, McMullen & Ocasio, 2017). Second,
several experiments published in the strategic management literature have proven to be highly
influential (Audia, Locke & Smith, 2000; Choi & Shepherd, 2005; Okhuysen & Eisenhardt,
2002; Shah & Swaminathan, 2008; Weber & Camerer, 2003). Third, the field has recently
exhibited a greater emphasis on microfoundations and behavioral strategy (e.g., Felin, Foss &
Ployhart, 2015; Foss & Pederson, 2016; Powell et al., 2011), which provides increased
opportunities for the use of experimental approaches. While experiments may be impractical for
some research questions, and concerns regarding the level of analysis or the ability to establish
external validity may be difficult to overcome, we argue that experiments have tremendous
potential in strategic management, as they are a powerful and underutilized methodology with
strengths that are distinct from and complementary to the more commonly used methods.
Building on previous studies that have documented and advocated for additional
experimental work in strategic management (Chatterji, Findley, Jensen, Meier, & Nielson, 2016;
Di Stefano & Gutierrez, 2018; Priem, Walters, & Li, 2011)1, we complete an extensive review of
published experiments in strategic management. We then analyze, synthesize, and explain how
this prior experimental work has contributed to the strategy literature, identify best practices, and
present avenues for future research, particularly how experiments can assist strategy researchers’
efforts to supplement existing research to develop and extend theory. To demonstrate how one
could design an impactful strategy experiment, we provide sample study designs and a best
practice methodology guide as part of our call to action2.

We make two primary contributions to strategic management literature. First, we
contribute to the developing body of work concerned with understanding the behavioral and
psychological antecedents of firm performance. It has been argued that strategy research, “lacks
adequate psychological grounding” and that “recent developments provide new opportunities for
merging psychology and strategy” (Powell et al., 2011:1370). Our review highlights ways in
which experiments could be used to advance several strategy topics from a psychological
perspective, including corporate strategy, cooperative strategy, strategic leadership, and
governance. Researchers could leverage the structured recommendations and example designs
we develop as a guide when creating experiments to supplement existing archival research in
their particular interest area.
Second, our review establishes a methodological launchpad for future experimental work,
documenting best practices and approaches that have been used to craft effective strategy
experiments. Our review includes in-depth analysis of past study characteristics so that trends
can be visualized within specific methodological, topic, and theoretical areas, and exemplar
studies, so that best practices can be highlighted and examined in detail. Moreover, we consider
how novel approaches from other disciplines could be used to conduct impactful strategy
research. Building on the desires articulated by strategy scholars to randomly assign treatments
to CEOs, firms, or markets (e.g., Bennett, Seamans & Zhu, 2015; Carnahan, 2017; Cummings &
Knott, 2018), we contribute a specific typology of approaches to strategy experiments that
acknowledges the different considerations necessary to employ random assignment based on
levels of analysis. Ultimately, we identify several ways in which scholars can leverage
established experimental techniques to complement robust archival and field studies and advance
strategic management theory.

EXPERIMENTS IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Why is Strategic Management Research Predominantly Archival?
Each research method has tradeoffs, because generalizability, contextual validity, and
measurement cannot all be maximized simultaneously (McGrath, 1981). Accordingly,
researchers sometimes seek to triangulate by using a combination of methods (e.g., Audia et al.,
2000; Flammer & Kacperczyk, 2019; Greenberg & Mollick, 2017), therefore accumulating the
benefits of multiple methodologies while simultaneously mitigating their weaknesses. However,
despite the benefits of this approach, a large portion of strategic management research continues
to be based on archival data (Jemison, 1981; Ketchen Jr, Boyd & Bergh, 2008; Scandura &
Williams, 2000). To develop a deeper understanding as to why this is the case, we augmented
our own observations by gathering qualitative insights from a panel of prominent strategic
management scholars (see Table S1 for a summary of these scholarly viewpoints on the
experimental method in strategy research).
We concluded that there are multiple reasons why experimental methods remain
relatively rare. First, strategic management scholars seem to place a priority on the value of
external validity (e.g., Garg, Li, & Shaw, 2018) For example, one of our strategic management
scholars noted that it is “[d]ifficult to simulate the gravity and implications of strategic decisions
in an experiment – e.g., a CEO’s performance or reputation is permanently affected by their
decisions.” In contrast, although it is commonly accepted that experiments in general and
laboratory experiments in particular increase confidence in internal validity due to precise
measurement and the elimination of alternative explanations in the lab, such benefits are offset in
part by lower external validity (Scandura & Williams, 2000). Therefore, researchers conducting
experiments grapple with decisions regarding external validity tradeoffs as they consider ways to
increase the internal validity via tightly controlled experimental tasks. Given the incredibly
dynamic nature of strategic management, complex models that maximize external validity have
often been preferred to models that focus on maximizing internal validity.
A second reason is that experiments may be less suitable at the level of analysis that
strategy scholars desire/need to study. This was evident in several comments from our panel,
including one in which a scholar questioned whether researching firm-level activities via
experiment was “effective and/or doable.” With connections to the industrial-organization
economics literature concentrated on firms (Jemison, 1981), strategic management scholars are
often focused on a different level of analysis than “mother” disciplines like psychology where
experiments are more prevalent. As noted in a key article defining behavioral strategy:
Indeed, despite a large volume of output, experimental psychology has done little to
address the problems of strategy theory and practice. Many strategy researchers regard
the core unit of analysis in strategy as the firm or business unit rather than the individual,
and there is skepticism about the scaling of psychological concepts to firms and
industries. Strategy practitioners are, if anything, more skeptical than researchers,
doubting whether the field can go beyond cognitive biases to produce useful frameworks
that integrate psychology and strategy practice. (Powell et al., 2011: 1370)
Third, an alternate method to establish causality is to conduct longitudinal studies or
employ other methods that consider the temporal relationships between variables (Shook,
Ketchen Jr, Hult & Kacmar, 2004). Strategic management scholars have employed a variety of
analytical techniques including longitudinal studies to address causality (Shook, Ketchen Jr,
Cycyota & Crockett, 2003), and these methods may often provide sufficient assurance. This
seems to be the case for one of our scholars, who noted “I also buy into Judea Pearl’s (2009)
arguments that randomized controlled experiments need not be put on a pedestal in terms of
causal identification.” Particularly given the level of analysis considerations already noted, such
methods are likely being used as a substitute for experiments (Bascle, 2008; Hill et al., 2021;
Semadeni, Withers, & Certo, 2014).

Fourth, pragmatically, strategic management doctoral programs tend to prioritize
econometric methods, meaning students may not formally be trained in experimental methods.
For example, one of our scholars noted, “I have not had the proper training to do it
[experiments], and I would probably not have the technical resources (labs to run the
simulation).” Furthermore, expecting students or new faculty members to obtain proficiency in
yet another research methodology is a significant requirement given the wide range of techniques
they are already expected to learn (Shook et al., 2003). Thus, pursuing experimental designs may
require partnerships with other scholars more likely to have previous experience with
experiments (Miller & Tsang, 2011).
Why Strategic Management Scholars Should Use Experiments More Often
Given the unique and very real obstacles to conducting experiments in the strategy
context combined with the existence and acceptance of substitute methods, why should strategic
management scholars use experiments? We present three main arguments.
First, as the “gold standard” for establishing cause and effect relationships, experiments
have unique advantages for social science researchers in that they facilitate accounting for
unmeasured variables and alternative explanations through randomization (Hill et al., 2021;
Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002). The primary advantage of random assignment is its “ability
to illuminate causal inference” (Shadish et al., 2002:18), so well-designed experiments featuring
randomization provide a way for researchers to account for all explanatory variables in a
particular model by creating highly controlled settings (Aguinis & Vandenberg, 2014; Stevenson
& Josefy, 2019). Thus, strategic management experiments could be particularly useful to expose
the causal links between the actions of the individuals within a firm and the firm as an entity.
Scholars have long noted that certain firm members often have a disproportionate amount of
influence over firm outcomes (Hambrick & Mason, 1984) and that the firm embodies a complex
set of interactions among its members (March, 1962). Experiments are useful in isolating the
effects of individual actions under highly specified, albeit constrained, conditions.
Second, data for a particular strategic management phenomenon of interest may be
limited, hard to obtain due to secrecy, or highly specific to a firm, making it difficult to obtain a
sufficient sample size. For instance, scholars have sometimes struggled to obtain access to board
room discussions or other unique situations faced by large firms such as decision making related
to disruptive events (e.g., an unforeseen pandemic) or blockbuster acquisitions. Experiments can
be useful for addressing such research questions. Researchers can use experiments to examine
how strategic decision-makers respond to a variety of situations, emergent or hypothetical, with a
high degree of control over dimensions of interest. In this way, research can be conducted even
before archival data is available on a variety of important strategy topics, including grand
challenges (e.g., global pandemic response or climate change scenarios). Indeed, given their
emergent nature such topics are inherently difficult to study using archival methodologies.
Despite their limitations, experiments can isolate mechanisms in complex decisions, which may
otherwise be a “black-box” when archival data alone are used.
Finally, while experiments are generally perceived as more readily designed for studies at
the individual-level of analysis, strategic management scholars are increasingly considering the
key role that individuals and groups within the organization play in affecting firm-level
outcomes. This has resulted in an increased focus on meso and multi-level research (Hitt,
Beamish, Jackson & Mathieu, 2007; Ployhart & Moliterno, 2011), a new emphasis on the
microfoundations of strategy (e.g., Felin et al., 2015; Foss & Pederson, 2016), and the emergence
of a strong line of work focused on behavioral strategy (e.g., Powell et al., 2011), all of which
have increased opportunities to more feasibly employ experiments. Concomitantly, this emerging
emphasis on micro-level research may be decreasing the suitability of other methods. For
example, strategic management researchers have long used archival proxies, or measures that are
“used to represent a theoretical construct,” but these variables are typically repurposed, and
scholars have expressed concern over their validity (Ketchen Jr., Ireland, and Baker, 2013:32;
Priem, Lyon, & Dess, 1999). Scholars may find it especially difficult to identify valid archival
proxies for variables associated with cognitive or perceptual constructs. By contrast,
experimental variables can be collected with a specific construct in mind, and thus can be far
more targeted. In light of these developments, strategic management scholars have the
opportunity to reimagine how experiments can be deployed in the strategy field.
METHODS
We conducted a comprehensive review of published experiments in strategic
management over the last two decades. Data for the current study were collected by reviewing all
issues of Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization
Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Management
Studies, Management Science, and Strategic Management Journal from January of 2000 through
August of 20203. To compile a list of strategy experiments, we began by searching all titles,
keywords, and abstracts using the terms experiment*, random*, field, policy captur*, laboratory,
and conjoint. This initial screen identified nearly 2,000 articles that were then subjected to
further screens to determine if an experiment had been conducted (the word “experiment” often
appeared to discuss actions taken by individuals or firms rather than the study’s methodology;
we also excluded natural and computer simulation experiments given this study’s focus on
random assignment). To narrow our scope to strategic management topics, we screened papers
by considering the theoretical and contextual keywords and research topics identified by the
authors of the research. While strategic management is a broad field that incorporates ideas and
theories from many different business and social science fields, it is at its core concerned with
and defined by attempts to better understand organizational performance (Makadok, Burton &
Barney, 2018; Rumelt, Schendel & Teece, 1991). Thus, we removed studies in which the central
topic was primarily related to organizational behavior, human resources, operations, finance,
economics, psychology, marketing, or methodology. For example, our initial screen included
several papers on leadership, any of which could have implications for strategy, but we only
included those that directly focused on CEOs or top management teams. We also used level of
analysis as an indicator, generally excluding papers that did not target firm-level outcomes unless
they were otherwise directly applicable to a Strategic Management Society (SMS) interest group.
Our screening and coding methods yielded 179 studies from 119 articles published from January
2000 to August of 2020 as described below.
For each publication that contained one or more experiments, we extracted a variety of
information to support coding of theory, topics and methods. If a paper included multiple
experiments, each one was separately coded. We also categorized studies into 10 topic groups,
associated with a corresponding SMS interest group. We categorized papers into more than one
topic if applicable but did not utilize behavioral strategy or strategy practice as topic areas in our
coding because it could be argued that they apply to many if not all the experiments in our
review. We provide a listing of all reviewed papers and their classification by topic in Table S2.
In addition to categorizing and reviewing papers by strategic management topic and
theory, we also conducted a thorough methodological review and coded each paper according to
the nature of the experimental design (e.g., within or between subjects), the experimental context
and delivery method (laboratory, field, etc.), the experimental sample used and the number of
participants, the country in which the study was conducted, the dependent variable type, the
contingent reward or pay offered to participants, the use of manipulation checks, and the
experimental stimuli.
RESULTS
A Review of Strategy Experiments by Topic
Our results indicate that while many experiments have been conducted in the strategy
domain and the number of experiments published is trending upward, studies featuring
experimental methodologies still represent a small fraction of the total studies published in the
nearly 20 years represented in our sample. Despite the strong emphasis on theory in management
(Colquitt & Zapata-Phelan, 2007; Hambrick, 2007), only 56 of the experiments (31%) in the
dataset explicitly drew upon a theory to motivate the research questions presented. We provide a
summary by theory in Table 1 and a detailed review of by topic below.
We structured our topic review according to widely accepted strategic management
topics associated with SMS interest groups. Based on this approach, the most common topic
areas for strategy experiments were stakeholder strategies with 52 studies (29% of total studies),
followed by strategic leadership and governance with 42 studies (23% of total studies), and
entrepreneurship and strategy with 34 studies (19%). Additionally, while multiple experiments
were published in each of the interest groups we considered, our results nonetheless reveal that
experimental methods were highly concentrated, with over half of studies pertaining to the
stakeholder or leadership categories. Table 2 provides indicative exemplars for each topic area
with summary-level information regarding the studies, and Table S2 (online supplement) lists all
studies in our review by topic area. We review each topic area in the following sections with an
emphasis on how experimental methods enabled or at least facilitated the study in a way that
would be difficult for other methods.
-------------------------INSERT TABLES 1 & 2 HERE-------------------------
Stakeholder Strategy. The most common topic was stakeholder strategies, with 52
experiments. These studies considered a broad range of more specific topics including corporate
social responsibility (Crilly, Ni, & Jiang, 2016; Flammer & Kacperczyk, 2019; Shea & Hawn,
2019), the effects of responses to crisis or scandal on stakeholders (Baker, Derfler-Rozin, Pitesa
& Johnson, 2019; Connelly, Ketchen Jr, Gangloff, & Shook, 2016; Folkes & Whang, 2003;
Raithel & Hock, 2021), stakeholder input (Kim, John, Rogers & Norton, 2019; Krause, Whitler,
& Semadeni, 2014), and stakeholder perceptions of the firm including trustworthiness (Elsbach
& Elofson, 2000), authenticity (Hahl & Ha, 2020; Radoynovska & King, 2019), and reputation
(Brooks, Highhouse, Russell, & Mohr, 2003).
In the strategy context, experiments are particularly helpful when studying complex
individual phenomena like stakeholder perceptions that involve interconnected variables. For
example, Coffman and Gotthard-Real (2019) consider whether firms can deflect responsibility
for unpopular actions when they are recommended by an adviser (such as an external
consultant). The authors employ a simulated decision-making game in which individuals make
decisions either by themselves or with advice given by advisers, and other game participants
affected by these decisions then have the option to punish or not punish the decision maker. The
researchers found that the presence of an adviser enables the decision-maker to deflect blame by
changing stakeholder perceptions of both the necessity and morality of the action. As prior work
has demonstrated, the formation of stakeholder perceptions of firm actions is a complex process
that other studies in our sample have shown is influenced by a variety of factors including
nationality (Crilly et al., 2016), familiarity (Brooks et al., 2003), and the firm’s explanation of
decisions (Elsbach & Elofson, 2000). This complexity makes it difficult to tease out the specific
effect of adviser advice on stakeholder views using correlational statistical methods. Coffman
and Gotthard-Real’s (2019) experiment provides an excellent example of how experiments can
extend our understanding of previous findings from archival studies and allow for determinations
of cause and effect through experimental design (albeit in a simulated setting).
Experiments can also be used to examine the underpinnings of interesting or novel
relationships that strategy researchers observe in the field. Shea and Hawn (2019) consider the
question of why firms commit resources to CSR through a social psychology lens, and in doing
so, introduce warmth and competence as attributes that are often interconnected with CSR in the
minds of stakeholders. They show that warmth in particular mediates the relationship between
CSR and advantageous outcomes such as enhanced reputation. Approaching this research
experimentally allows for the direct assessment of the effects of these social psychology
concepts in the strategic management context in a way that would likely not be possible with
archival methodologies.
Experiments can also help make connections between strategic management and related
literature, for example the literature on charitable giving. There is a movement amongst charities
to report performance metrics and archival evidence that these outcomes influence subsequent
giving decisions, yet archival strategic management field studies cannot clearly indicate how and
why patrons value this information. Thus, Exley’s two experiments (2020) are particularly useful
for investigating seemingly paradoxical findings in prior field studies on giving behaviors. Exley
(2020) found that the prominence of administrative costs and processing fee indicators
negatively affected donations, suggesting that there may be a risk to charities in providing these
metrics because they can be directly responsible for lower giving.
Strategic Leadership and Governance. The strategic leadership and governance area
contains 42 studies and among other topics addresses CEO and executive characteristics and
behaviors including truthfulness (Jacguemet, Luchini, Rosaz, & Shogren, 2019), diversity-
valuing (Hekman, Johnson, Foo & Yang, 2017), ethical leadership (Huang & Paterson, 2017),
decision making (Gary & Wood, 2011; Mitchell, Shepherd, & Sharfman, 2011; Mueller,
Melwani, Loewenstein & Deal, 2018; Tosi, Brownlee, Silva, & Katz, 2003), vision (Carton &
Lucas, 2018; Carton, Murphy & Clark, 2014; Venus, Stam, & van Knippenberg, 2019), and CEO
dismissal and succession (Connelly, Li, Shi, & Lee, 2020), particularly in the wake of scandal or
misconduct (Connelly et al., 2016; Connelly, Shi, Walker, & Hersel, 2020). Several of these
articles addressed questions that likely would have been difficult to investigate without
experiments. For example, Hekman and colleagues (2017) investigate the lack of diversity in
top-level leadership. While the effect is easily observed through archival or correlational
methods, the authors investigate its potential mechanisms, and find that diversity-valuing
behavior by female or minority leaders leads to lower performance ratings of those leaders. By
using an experiment, they were able to gather information that may not be available in the field,
mitigate potential privacy issues, largely avoid under reporting of biased views due to low social
desirability, and directly observe biased tendencies that may contribute to a lack of top-level
diversity.
Jacguemet and colleagues (2019) examine the issue of dishonesty in senior executives by
investigating whether voluntarily taking an oath decreases lying. The question of honesty in
firms is an important one that rose to prominence with notable scandals in the 2000s and led to
the creation of the MBA Oath at Harvard and the World Economic Forum’s Oath Project
(Anderson & Escher, 2010; Bishop & Green, 2011) with the goal of increasing honesty in the
business world. Assuming that objective information on leader truthfulness could be obtained,
determining the specific effects of oath taking on lying apart from other factors would be
difficult using archival data due to differences in such factors as firm and industry culture
regarding lying, the situation-specific consequences of truthfulness or lying, and others. The
authors were able to overcome these challenges experimentally and show that oath taking alone
decreases lying. Similarly, Connelly, Shi, and colleagues (2020) also performed a study on
unethical behavior, but at the organizational level, examining how such conduct affects CEO
succession. The authors suggest that in the aftermath of organizational wrongdoing, boards of
directors prioritize ethical behavior in their search for a new CEO, and that this criterion
increases the attractiveness of job candidates who have attended religiously affiliated schools.
Choosing a new CEO is complex because many factors are likely to contribute to the decision,
and the relative importance of these many factors is difficult to disentangle. The authors deal
with these challenges by using a policy capturing approach, which allows them to measure the
importance of criteria in the presence and absence of past firm misconduct while also controlling
for within subject variation and eliminating potentially confounding external factors. In
justifying their methodological choice, the authors note that archival data are poorly suited for
their research question because it cannot measure the importance of hiring criteria to individuals
apart from the influence of others. Using the policy capturing approach, the authors were able to
isolate the effects of prior unethical behavior, and ultimately confirm that concern for ethical
behavior becomes a more important hiring criteria in the wake of wrongdoing.
Entrepreneurship and Strategy. The entrepreneurship and strategy category included
34 experiments which addressed topics such as entrepreneurial failure (Artinger & Powell,
2016), entrepreneurial action and hustle behaviors (Fisher, Stevenson, Neubert, Burnell, &
Kuratko, 2020), bias in entrepreneurial finance (Bigelow, Lundmark, Parks, & Wuebker, 2014;
Kanze, Huang, Conley, & Higgins, 2018; Younkin & Kuppuswamy, 2018), determinants of
entrepreneurial finance (Chen, Yao & Kotha, 2009; Clarke, Cornelissen & Healey, 2019), market
entry and exit (Elfenbein, Knott & Croson, 2017; Moore, Oesch & Zietsma, 2007), and
commerce in base-of-the-pyramid contexts (Jones Christensen, Siemsen & Balasubramanian,
2015). These studies showcase the use of experiments for a variety of purposes including
evaluating competing mechanisms, examining questions in which the outcome is difficult to
define, and investigating questions set in uniquely entrepreneurial and uncertain contexts.
Strategic entrepreneurship researchers have been effective at leveraging experiments to
extend archival observations and unpack important psychological mediators at the individual-
level. For example, to extend their archival study on entrepreneurial hustle, Fisher and colleagues
(2020) conducted an exploratory qualitative study paired with a follow-up experiment to unpack
the mechanisms observed in the field. In their experiment these authors investigate precisely how
the entrepreneurial hustle construct (i.e., entrepreneur’s urgent, unorthodox actions to overcome
challenges under extreme uncertainty) enhances the likelihood that organizational leaders will
enlist stakeholders and garner resources for their growing firms. The experimental results
demonstrate that entrepreneurial hustle positively influences stakeholder perceptions of firm
legitimacy through increased trustworthiness perceptions of the business leader.
Jones Christensen and colleagues (2015) provide an effective example of how field
experiments can be both theoretically and practically beneficial. Their study examined the
consumption habits of water purification systems among villages in Malawi (at the village level)
and reported the somewhat counterintuitive finding that the proportion of villagers who used the
product increased when it was deeply discounted compared to when it was free. Using an
experimental design allowed the researchers to identify that the changes in consumption were the
result of price rather than differences in water availability or other variables.
Artinger and Powell (2016) assessed and compared two previously identified causes of
entrepreneurial failure, overconfidence, and random error due to uncertainty, using a mock
computerized marketplace. Participants were given a general knowledge quiz and offered the
chance to enter their score into the “market,” with the understanding that they would gain or lose
money depending on how high their score was relative to other participants. The authors found
that patterns of erroneous market entry (situations where participants entered the market and lost
money) were most consistent with overconfidence. Given that the study was comparative in
nature, the experimental approach was appropriate in that it isolated the two explanations from
potential confounding factors and allowed for an assessment of the two against real data.
Elfenbein and colleagues (2017) examined delayed exit from failing entrepreneurial
ventures and assessed whether equity stakes (access to firm cash flows) were involved. The
experiment found that undergraduate business students asked to make exit decisions as part of a
computer game delayed exit past the optimal point when they were given equity stakes. Defining
“optimal” exit is challenging given the many factors involved. The authors’ use of the lab for this
study enabled them to create a simulated environment where the definition of an optimal exit
was clear, thereby allowing them to assess the effects of equity stakes on this dependent variable.
Corporate Strategy. We identified 27 studies pertaining to corporate strategy. Research
in corporate strategy encompasses topics such as goal setting and organizational performance
(Gary, Yang, Yetton & Sterman, 2017; Hohnisch, Pittnauer, Selten, & Pfingsten, 2016), the
influence of regulatory focus on organizational routines and motivation (Døjbak Håkonsson,

Eskildsen, Argote, Mønster, Burton & Obel, 2016; Stam, van Knippenberg, Wisse, & Pieterse,
2018), and market entry decisions (Gutierrez, Astebro & Obloj, 2020). This includes questions of
a behavioral (Bardolet, Fox & Lovallo, 2011), judgmental (Phadnis, Caplice, Sheffi & Singh,
2015), and cognitive (Shapira & Shaver, 2014) nature. The article by Bardolet and colleagues
(2011) is notable in that it was a response to an observed phenomenon in which capital is
allocated between business units and subunits in systematic ways, referred to as partition
dependence. The study dealt with the capital allocation decisions among the business units of a
hypothetical firm and the factors that influence this allocation. The authors observed capital
allocation patterns based on firm centralization and business unit and division numbers and argue
that executives have a cognitive bias towards proportional allocations. This study was able to
address many of the potential problems of studying such a complicated topic by presenting a
standardized experimental scenario to participants, thereby mitigating the effects of agency
conflicts and other potential situation-specific confounding variables. Similarly, Shapira and
Shaver (2014) consider how contingency factors and characteristics of decision-makers
contribute to sub-optimal investments. Their experiment involves the anchoring heuristic and
shows that exposing individuals to materials that create an anchor is, on average, sufficient to
change decision makers’ intentions to make an investment. Such evidence supports the existence
of anchoring as a real phenomenon rather than as an artifact of other factors, which would have
been difficult to rule out using other methods.
A final example is the work on scenario planning. Phadnis and colleagues (2015)
conducted a series of experiments in which experts were asked their opinions on potential
investments before and after scenario planning. The authors found that experts’ confidence in
their own judgement was not affected by using multiple scenarios as had been previously
suggested, but instead was strengthened or weakened based on how the investment performed in
a particular scenario. The study was beneficial both in providing evidence that did not confirm
previous work and in offering concrete conclusions on a complex topic. Together, the studies in
this topic area illustrate that experiments can be valuable in correcting erroneous conclusions and
consolidating gains from previous studies, providing a solid foundation for subsequent research.
Knowledge and Innovation. The 27 experiments within the knowledge and innovation
topic area included studies of knowledge transfer and spillovers (Di Stefano, King & Verona,
2014; Flammer & Kacperczyk, 2019; Kachra & White, 2008; Kane, 2010), creativity and
ideation (Berg, 2016; Franke, Poetz & Schreier, 2014; Keum & See, 2017), and organizational
learning (Fang, 2012; Lawrence, 2020). Several studies in this topic area were conducted in
creative or nascent venturing contexts in which archival data may be difficult to obtain. For
example, one study gathered data from gourmet Italian chefs, who were asked how likely they
would be to share domain relevant information (recipes and techniques) based on the reputation
of competitors (Di Stefano et al., 2014). The experiment was notable both for the creative
context in which it was carried out, and because each participant answered questions for more
than one hypothetical situation (i.e., repeated trials). This allowed the authors to account for
potential unobserved variables by computing participant-level fixed effects, strengthening the
robustness of their findings.
Other studies in this category also sought to address creative research questions.
Motivated by the rejection of inevitable disclosure doctrines in parts of the U.S., Flammer and
Kacperczyk (2019) investigated whether corporate social responsibility programs could be
deployed as a defense against knowledge spillovers and found support for this notion. This study
combined non-experimental techniques (a difference-in-differences approach) with experimental

methods to exploit the advantages of multiple techniques in addressing the research question.
Cooperative Strategies. Cooperative strategies accounted for 24 studies and addressed a
variety of non-competitive arrangements between organizations including alliances and
networks, thus seeking theory-based explanations of inter-organizational relationships including
the roles of trust, social capital, and governance. Many of these studies focused on alliances
(Agarwal, Croson, & Mahoney, 2010; Amaldoss & Staelin, 2010; Arend, 2009; Fonti, Maoret &
Whitbred, 2017; Mellewigt, Thomas, Weller & Zajac, 2017; Patzelt & Shepherd, 2008; Shah &
Swaminathan, 2008), with other studies considering reputation (Arend, 2009), trust and violation
(Harmon, Kim & Mayer, 2015), partner selection (Shah & Swaminathan, 2008), and free riding
(Fonti et al., 2017). As with the research in the other major areas, studies on cooperative
strategies combined topic-specific inquiry with methods that mitigated endogeneity to allow
causal claims to be made. For example, Agarwal and colleagues (2010) performed a study in
which participants played a computerized game that simulated the dynamics of strategic
alliances. The game varied the extent to which participants would benefit from alliance success
and the levels of communication with alliance partners. The authors found that alliances with a
high level of common benefit were more likely to succeed than other forms, and that this effect
was enhanced when communication with alliance partners was allowed. These results are
insightful given the complexity of potentially critical factors in a strategic alliance and were
facilitated by the high degree of experimental control over potentially confounding variables.
A second exemplary experiment is provided by Harmon and colleagues (2015).
Participants were led to believe that they had been the victims of contract infringement and were
put in a position to monetarily punish an unknown and unseen offender. Previous work in
strategy had not investigated individual reactions to contract disputes and had instead relied
largely on archival studies to answer related but less direct questions, such as the effect of
contract structure on dispute likelihood (Malhotra & Lumineau, 2011). In contrast, Harmon and
colleagues (2015) focused on how individuals interpreted contract violations and were able to
directly test how these micro-level interpretations affected trust and the management of
relationships. Other exemplar studies in this topic area include Fonti and colleagues’ (2017)
assessment of the role of alliance effectiveness and collaboration in multi-party alliance free
riding behavior and Shah and Swaminathan’s (2008) investigation of strategic alliance partner
selection. In both cases, the use of experimental methodology allows the authors to address
questions that would be difficult to evaluate with other methods, and to add contextual detail to
important strategic questions.
Strategy Process. There were 22 experimental studies on strategy process, several of
which had a cognitive theme such as decision making (Camuffo, Cordova, Gambardella &
Spina, 2020; Hohnisch et al., 2016; Lovallo, Clarke, & Camerer, 2012; Mitchell et al., 2011),
organizational learning (Fang, 2012) and mental models (Gary & Wood, 2011; Gary, Wood &
Pillinger, 2012), For example, Gary and Wood (2011) demonstrated that more accurate mental
models led to the adoption of better decision rules and in turn, to better performance. They noted
that it had long been assumed that managers who better understand the industry structure and the
capabilities of their own organization are able to use this knowledge to enhance its performance,
and experimentally, the authors were able to demonstrate a causal relationship. Likewise,
Lovallo and colleagues (2012) examined analogizing as a decision-making technique and found
that adopting an “outside view” in which the decision maker adopts a detached view of the
analogies resulted in a higher expected rate of return for a project. The precision of their method
allowed the authors to address specific questions about the quantity and types of analogies that
lead to good decisions, an area they note had previously received insufficient attention. Finally,
Reitzig and Maciejovsky (2015) studied behavior associated with hierarchical vertical
information flow using both a within and between-subjects paradigm, thereby contributing to the
reconciliation of the conflicting information economics and organizational psychology
predictions surrounding this topic. Participants were asked to make decisions on whether to
forward ideas to higher levels within a hypothetical firm based on idea quality. The study found
that steeper hierarchies discouraged idea passing due to apprehension regarding evaluation or
perceived lack of control. The use of experiments in these studies allowed for the testing of
assumptions and clarification and reconciliation of existing paradigms.
Competitive Strategy. Competitive strategy includes 13 experimental studies on topics
such as the influence (or lack thereof) of competition on market entry decisions (Luoma, Falk,
Totzek, Tikkanen & Mrozek, 2018; Moore et al., 2007), information and competitive decision
making (Abramson, Currim & Sarin, 2005), mixed strategy games (Amaldoss & Jain, 2002), and
market dynamics and confidence in judgement (Radzevick & Moore, 2011). Conventional
methods are excellent for describing competitive behavior but are largely unequipped to identify
the more detailed components of these phenomena. Experiments can assist in filling this gap.
Luoma and colleagues (2018) conducted two experiments on firm posture when entering a new
market (highly aggressive or not very committed) and examined whether posture can affect the
competitive response of incumbent firms. Using both managers and university students as
participants, the authors determined that facilitating a perception of either high aggression or
minimal commitment reduced the strength of incumbent responses, in the process addressing the
“cognitive foundations of competitive responses to market entry” (Luoma et al., 2018:1388).
As noted of previous studies from our sample, experiments are also useful for examining
paradoxical or counterintuitive phenomena. Amaldoss and Jain (2002) examine mixed strategy
games through a model-based simulation and report the surprising result that of two firms
competing to obtain a patent, the firm more likely to commit resources to product development
and ultimately be granted the patent is the one that values it less, not more. The counterintuitive
nature of this finding along with its origin in theory and simulation dictated the need for a
follow-up study, for which the authors could have used archival methods. However, an archival
study by its nature would have been affected by potentially confounding factors and would not
have been able to directly assess the firm behaviors responsible for the model’s predictions.
Thus, the authors used an experiment to avoid these concerns and complement the strengths of
the simulation. The follow-up study allowed for the confirmation of the model’s predictions and
demonstrated the potential of experiments to assess the voracity of theory and models.
Strategic Human Capital. Strategic human capital accounted for only five studies.
Choudhury and colleagues (2020) used MBA students and an online experiment in the patent
application context to show that human capital can complement machine learning by mitigating
the bias to which machine learning can be prone. By using a specialized task (patent
examination) and research subjects that were of similar age and experience to patent examiners,
the authors were able to capture the benefits of experiments while keeping external validity as
high as possible.
In another notable study, Berge and colleagues (2015) conducted a field experiment in
Tanzania in which they provided microenterprise owners with business training, a grant, both, or
neither one, then assessed the effects of their manipulations by examining observed behavior.
They found that participants benefited greatly when they received both a bump in human capital
(through the business training) and financial capital (the grant). Through the field context, they
were able to capitalize on the strengths of the experimental methodology while at least partially
mitigating some of the drawbacks. Likewise, Chatterji and colleagues (2016) initiated new
research in the strategic human capital area by examining the effects of firm and business unit
identity on the extent of engineer engagement with their firm’s internal question and answer
system. The authors experimentally manipulated the supposed identity of prospective recipients
of interfirm assistance, thus isolating its effect on engineer behavior. Both the Berge and
Chatterji-led author teams demonstrated how variables can be experimentally measured to
address important questions in under explored areas.
Global Strategy. The global strategy topic area contained five studies, two of which
(Chatterji et al., 2016; Crilly et al., 2016) examined the liability of foreignness, a topic for which
experimental methodology is potentially useful given the plethora of potential confounding
factors when attempting to draw causal conclusions on questions involving international firms.
Crilly and colleagues (2016) test for the presence of liabilities of foreignness within the CSR
context. They conducted a creative study in which due to cultural similarities, they listed a firm’s
country of origin as either the USA or Canada and asked employees of American NGOs for their
impressions of these firms given either a “do-good” or “do-no-harm” CSR program. The authors
found significant differences in impressions of the “do-no-harm” firms based on country and
were able to attribute these to the foreignness of the firms due to the careful experimental design
of the study. Decisions involving foreign direct investment (FDI) are similarly complicated, with
a long list of potential contributing factors. Tong and colleagues’ (2015) address this by running
an experiment to gauge the relative importance of various factors for FDI attractiveness. They
combine the advantages of the experimental methodology with a relatively high degree of
external validity using Chinese executives as participants, ultimately reporting results that would
not be attainable through survey or archival means. Taken together, the studies in the 10 topic
areas demonstrate how experiments can be creatively designed and deployed and can be
beneficial for addressing questions of importance to strategic management scholars.
A Review of Methodology in Strategy Experiments
In addition to a review of strategy topics, we also thoroughly examined methodological
components of each study to identify best practices and future research opportunities.
Experimental Design. Among the benefits of well-designed experiments is that they rule
out potential alternative explanations. A classic experimental design is one in which groups
randomly receive either exposure to a treatment or a control condition. This design characterized
the majority (71%) of the experiments in our dataset (Table S3). Eleven percent (11%) of studies
used a within-subjects design in which individuals were compared with themselves after
receiving a specific treatment, thus serving as their own control, and an additional eleven percent
(11%) used a mixed approach that incorporated both between and within-subjects components.
Finally, seven percent (7%) of studies utilized a conjoint/policy capturing approach in which the
use of multiple independent variables in differing combinations allows the effect of each variable
to be assessed. For example, Mitchell and colleagues (2011) administered a conjoint decision-
making task to CEOs with the same decision being made multiple times. This allowed the extent
of erratic decision making and the specific factors that contribute to it to be assessed.
Experimental Context. Our findings regarding contexts are summarized in Table S4.
The most common context (i.e., means of administration) in our sample was online with 64
experiments. The surge in online experiments appears to be primarily driven by the introduction
of Amazon’s mechanical turk (MTurk) and similar services as a method for quickly identifying
and selecting respondents with desired characteristics, an approach validated by recent studies
(Buhrmester, Kwang & Gosling, 2016; Crump, McDonnell & Gureckis, 2013). In light of the
accelerating popularity of such sampling methods, it is perhaps not surprising that many of the
online studies in our sample were published in the past three years, and the obstacles to
interfacing with respondents in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic suggest that online panels
are likely to remain popular. Another popular method was traditional laboratory experiments (n =
54). Such studies included computerized business mock experiments (e.g., Elfenbein et al.,
2017), computer games (e.g., Arend, 2009), and teamwork activities (e.g., Døjbak Håkonsson et
al., 2016). Laboratory experiments in the classroom served as the context for 29 studies. These
studies were largely of a cognitive nature and less likely to include behavioral outcomes (e.g.,
Crilly, 2017; Shapira & Shaver, 2014; Wright & Goodwin, 2002). Finally, 27 studies involved
active field experiments.
Experimental Samples. Sample characteristics are important in experiments, because
they influence an experiment’s external validity (Hsu, Simmons, & Wieland, 2017; Shadish et
al., 2002). In the current data set, 82 of the studies recruited students as the participants (see
Table S5). Despite skepticism regarding the generalizability of studies using students as
participants, they can be appropriate for certain questions that pertain to cognition and interactive
choices in business settings, particularly when the research question relates to the psychological
processes of non-specialists (Stevenson & Josefy, 2019). Business professionals (24) and
EMBAs (10) were also common participants, but few experiments were carried out using CEOs
or executives and board members (one and five studies, respectively). As previously mentioned,
crowd-based options (Aguinis & Lawal, 2012) such as MTurk (n = 36) increased in frequency
over the time covered by our review, and all were published in 2015 or later. While studies
varied in size with several having thousands of participants, the median number of participants
per study was 157. Seven experiments used group level participants such as retail chain stores
(Lawrence, 2020) or small businesses (Anderson, Chandy & Zia, 2018). In terms of participant
country of origin, the most sampled country in the dataset was the USA (75) followed by the
United Kingdom and China (8 each), signaling a need for increased sampling diversity at the
country-level in strategy.
Particularly in the field studies, some author teams compensated their participants by
providing them with a knowledge-based reward such as free training (Anderson et al., 2018;
Camuffo et al., 2020), or to incentivize firms to participate, the results of analysis (Chatterji et
al., 2016). For the experiments in our dataset, 50 percent paid their participants, while an
additional 10 percent provided a non-monetary reward like extra credit or a non-monetary good
such as chocolate or wine. Eleven percent did not pay, and the remaining 29 percent did not
disclose their compensation strategy.
Priming. Priming is useful in the experimental context to reliably bring forth specific
mindsets, emotions, or other cognitive states such as trust (Meier, Stephenson & Perkowski,
2019), particularly in the laboratory setting, in which contextual factors may otherwise be
lacking. While our sample includes examples of studies that primed mindsets (Crilly, 2017; Li et
al., 2018; Mueller et al., 2018) and trust (Meier et al., 2019), priming was used by only six
percent of experiments in our dataset.
Dependent Variable Type. We classified dependent variables into three categories: An
intention to act in a certain way or make a particular decision (intention-based measure, 49%), an
observed behavior under mock conditions (mock behavioral measure, 37%), or observed
behavior in real life (realistic behavior measure, 14%). Scholars have suggested that behavioral
outcomes are well-suited for strategy process research (Dutton & Stumpf, 1991; Hough & White,
2003; Miller & Tsang, 2011). Measuring an intention may not have the validity of the other two
options, but it increases design feasibility, especially in situations where conducting a behavioral
experiment would be prohibitive (e.g., firm acquisition). Mock behavioral measures constitute a
middle ground and allow for observation of simulated behavior. This is useful for maintaining
reasonably high validity in situations where the practical and ethical concerns of realistic
behavioral measures would likely preclude their use.
Experiments as Complementary Methods. For all the advantages of experiments that
have been enumerated, they also suffer from some weaknesses, including a comparative lack of
external validity. Consequently, a complementary approach in which an experiment is used to
complement an existing field study within a single paper can be useful. This approach was used
by 39 percent of the studies in our sample.
Audia and colleagues (2000) provide an excellent example of this approach using
differing methodologies to investigate strategic persistence. The first study uses archival data to
show that past success is associated with strategic persistence following radical environmental
change. This study has the advantage of high external validity due to its real-life setting and the
absence of experimenter manipulations, but these same characteristics prevent conclusions
regarding the operative mechanism of the association from being reached, meaning that the
observed association could be influenced by or attributable to unknown confounding factors. The
authors address these shortcomings using a subsequent experiment in which they assess strategic
persistence following simulated radical environmental change with all variables held constant
except for level of past performance. This provides confirmatory evidence with high internal
validity that the association observed in study one is due to the level of past performance. Use of
complementary methods allowed the authors to obtain results with high external validity based
on the archival study while still making causal claims with high internal validity from the
experiment. In this way, they were able to triangulate around the question of interest and exploit
the strengths of multiple approaches.
DISCUSSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH AGENDA
While experiments in strategic management are still rare compared to other methods, our
review indicates that scholars are increasingly calling for and turning to experiments to advance
several strategic management topic areas. However, the degree of concentration in a small
number of interest groups raises concerns that perhaps experiments in strategic management are
overly narrow in their focus, contributing insights to only a few important strategy topics. We
believe that there is substantial opportunity for experiments to be used in other areas such as
global strategy, strategic human capital, and several additional topic areas where they have
seldom been deployed. For example, we were unable to identify recent experimental studies
connected to substantial research streams such as transaction cost economics or the resource-
based view (Barney, 1991; Williamson, 1979).
Certainly, experiments are unlikely to be appropriate for all research questions. Chatterji
and colleagues note in reference to experiments, “We view this methodology as a complement,
not a substitute, for existing strategy research methods, since field experiments have strengths
and limitations that are often different from our traditional techniques” (2016:117). McGrath
(1981) refers to the incompatible nature of maximizing multiple study characteristics like
generalizability, measurement precision, and contextual validity as a three-horned dilemma in
which maximization of one characteristic inevitably leads to concessions from others such that
no single approach can simultaneously maximize all three. Our conclusion from this review
echoes these sentiments and we suggest that experiments have an increasingly high potential to
provide a valuable alternative approach for strategy researchers. We encourage more
experimental research in strategic management because achieving greater methodological
balance in the field as a whole through increased use of randomized experiments will enhance
the ability to triangulate and establish causal relationships, thereby consolidating past gains and
moving the field forward. As Hill and colleagues (2021) surmise:
“Only through repeated studies of a research question using different designs and
analyses can we gain confidence that a specific endogeneity threat is fully addressed.
Even the idealized experiment requires triangulation with different designs, samples, and
operationalization of variables before causal claims free of any validity threat can be
made.” (p. 138)
Experimental Design Considerations Particularly Relevant to Strategic Management
One reason why experiments are at times difficult to envision in strategic management
might be due to the organizational level of analysis. However, there are multiple ways to design
experiments and assign participants to roles for advancing macro-level research. Thus, we
present the following typology of participant roles and how they can be useful in advancing
scholarship to address particular types of questions (see also Table 3).
-------------------------INSERT TABLE 3 HERE-------------------------
Firms as Participants. While difficult, in rare instances, experimentalists have
developed designs in which firms are the participants and are randomly assigned to particular
conditions (e.g., Anderson et al., 2018; Camuffo et al., 2020). These studies are valuable because
they are at the level of analysis most central to strategic management scholarship. However, they
may suffer from generalizability criticisms because they are more likely to be conducted with
smaller firms, given the relative infeasibility of getting large firms to consent to researcher
assigned treatments. Perhaps, these studies may be more feasible in strategic entrepreneurship
settings, where there are a larger number of small firms. It may also be more feasible within an
organization to have multiple divisions as participants, with some implementing the intervention
and others not. Both options have promise for future experimental research conducted at the
firm-level.
Participants as Proxies for Firms/Organizations. Another approach is to consider
participants in the study as proxies for a firm or organization (Amaldoss & Staelin, 2010; Fang,
2012). For instance, to study competitive dynamics, participants may be asked to represent an
airline making the choice of whether to expand by acquiring landing rights in a new location. In
such a study, the focus may not necessarily be on the decision-maker but instead to ascertain
how firms’ actions may impact the actions of competitors. This approach may be useful when the
researcher seeks to focus on the varied exchanges between firms in the competitive landscape.
Participants as Proxies for Organizational Decision-Makers. In contrast, some
scholars may be focused directly on the individual actors within the firm, particularly key
decision-makers. For example, strategic leadership scholars may use participants as proxies for
firm actors, directing the participant to take on the role of a CEO, CFO, or other decision maker
of a company (e.g., Chng, Rodgers, Shih, & Song, 2012; Gary & Wood, 2011; Stam et al., 2018).
We find that this is the most frequent approach to experimental design in strategic management.
This approach has numerous advantages, including the ability of many participants to grasp the
identity they have been assigned. However, it may attract criticism if the participants do not have
sufficient experience or background to be suitable proxies for the executive role they are asked to
imagine.
Participants as Stakeholders. Many other studies assign participants to the role of
specific stakeholders, including for instance, investors (Greenberg & Mollick, 2017),
shareholders (Krause et al., 2014), and customers (Raithel & Hock, 2021). Participants can
provide strong indications of how these various stakeholders might interact, engage, or transact
with focal organizations under various manipulated conditions. This approach is useful given
growing interest in reputation and trust between firms and their stakeholders, and the developing
importance of research on the stakeholder view of the firm (Barney & Mackey, 2021).
Using Experiments to Extend Theory in Strategic Management
One potential concern identified from our review is that few experiments in the sample
(approximately one third) were motivated explicitly by theory. Experiments have been
recognized as useful for advancing theory-based knowledge in other social science fields (Lude
& Prügl, 2021; Trochim & Donnelly, 2001; Stevenson, Josefy, McMullen, & Shepherd, 2020),
and the same could be true in strategic management. We propose that experimental
methodologies are particularly well suited for testing and advancing theory in strategy because
they are characterized by high internal validity and are thus able to isolate and test specific
variables that are central to a given theory, providing a higher degree of precision and certainty
in evaluating theories than do other methods.
The advantages of evaluating theory experimentally are evident in a notable subset of
studies in our review. This advancement can take various forms including evaluating or
extending to new contexts, and is applicable to both established, as well as more nascent
theories. For example, management control theory has classically been applied within rather than
across organizations (Giglioni & Bedeian, 1974), but Shah and Swaminathan (2008) apply it to
the context of partner selection in strategic alliances by emphasizing the importance of
monitoring and when necessary, correcting processes that occur in such agreements. In contrast
to past studies which have focused on partner characteristics for determining partner
attractiveness, the authors suggest that alliance project type is a key moderator of partner
selection factors. They highlight the differing manageability and interpretability of various
alliance projects and predict that these will affect the relevance of specific partner characteristics
for a given alliance project. Thus, beyond providing nuance and insights into strategic alliance
dynamics, this research contributes to management control theory by extending it to and
demonstrating its applicability in a novel and very practical context.
Experiments are also useful for evaluating and extending nascent theories. For example,
Raithel and Hock (2021) examine how the type of crisis and response to it affects post-crisis firm
reputation. Crisis-response match theory suggests that firms can maximize their retained social
approval in the wake of scandal by matching their response, specifically the amount of
responsibility that they accept, with the “situational attributions of responsibility,” or the
perceptions of how responsible they are (Bundy & Pfarrer, 2015). This predicts that conforming
strategies, in which perceptions of responsibility and the amount of responsibility accepted
match, will be more beneficial in retaining social approval than nonconforming strategies in
which there is a mismatch. This means that the theory supports the counterintuitive conclusion
that an over-conforming crisis response strategy (i.e., a response that exceeds expectations such
as firm acceptance of a share of responsibility that exceeds stakeholder perceptions of what they
are responsible for) is nonconforming and thus increases social approval losses by external
stakeholders. Furthermore, the theory as proposed by Bundy and Pfarrer (2015) considers the
consequences for social approval, but not for the related concept of firm reputation, and Raithel
and Hock (2021) note that as of their study’s publication, no other authors had evaluated crisis-
response match theory empirically. Raithel and Hock (2021) address this gap by experimentally
testing the effects of various conforming and nonconforming strategies on perceived firm
reputation. Their results provide support for the predictions of crisis-match response theory and
extend its implications to include firm reputation. While the authors also conduct an archival
study on the effects of product recalls on stock price, their experiment allows them to extend
theory to firm reputation and to conclude that perceptions of firm reputation are due to crisis
response strategy rather than one of the many potential confounding variables present in the
archival study.
In summary, we propose that experiments are a particularly good method for extending
established theories under certain conditions, such as when there is the potential to apply an
extant theory to novel contexts (e.g., management control theory, Shah & Swaminathan, 2008),
or evaluate conflicting predictions at the intersection of multiple theories (e.g., regulatory focus
and regulatory fit theories, Stam et al., 2018). In such cases, the ability of experiments to assess
the effects of specific variables can be utilized in conjunction with theory-driven hypotheses to
clarify or establish the boundaries of specific theories. Previous studies have even recommended
specific theories that could potentially benefit from evaluation with experimental methods,
including stakeholder theory (Tantalo & Priem, 2016), real options theory (Trigeorgis & Reuer,
2017), and upper echelons theory (Tang et al., 2018). Similar to the example studies cited above,
scholars wishing to extend or evaluate these or other theories could employ experiments
carefully designed to evaluate established theories in novel contexts, evaluate the predictions of
new or untested theories, or even test which theory best explains a given phenomenon.
The Microfoundations of Strategic Management
During the past decade we have witnessed an intensification of the “microfoundations”
movement in strategy, which seeks to understand constructs on the firm-level through individual
actions and interactions (Foss, 2021). Strategic decisions are a central and unifying theme in
strategic management (Leiblein, Reuer, & Zenger, 2018), and scholars have previously noted
that decisions are made by individuals and groups of individuals within firms, particularly
influential individuals (e.g., CEOs, top management team members, Hambrick and Mason,
1984). The microfoundations literature emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and
studying these groups and individuals (Felin et al., 2015), and includes papers on prominent
strategy issues such as dynamic capabilities (Teece, 2007), resource-based theory (Foss, 2011),
and firm performance (Eisenhardt, Furr, and Bingham, 2010). By 2011, the movement had
gained sufficient momentum that the Strategic Management Journal published a special issue on
the “Psychological Foundations of Strategic Management,” which received more submissions
than any other special issue in its history (Powell et al., 2011). It included studies applying a
micro lens to classic strategy concepts like corporate capital allocation (Bardolet et al., 2011),
strategy implementation (Huy, 2011), and dynamic capabilities (Hodgkinson and Healey, 2011).
Furthermore, it called for the integration of these new perspectives with more traditional
approaches while dissolving the “false divide” between them (Levinthal, 2011).
The increasing emphasis on the microfoundations of strategic management is likely to
have a significant impact on the future role of experiments in strategy. A frequently cited
impediment to conducting strategy experiments is the difficulty of randomly assigning firms to
conditions (e.g., Grigoriou & Rothaermel, 2017). While strategy scholars have successfully
managed to overcome this challenge while sampling at the firm level (e.g., Anderson et al., 2018;
Camuffo et al., 2020), micro-oriented approaches increase opportunities to sample at the
individual-level. Further, certain micro topics such as cognition (e.g., Carton & Lucas, 2018) and
strategic behavior (e.g., Audia et al., 2000) allow some questions to be addressed using readily
available participant pools such as students rather than requiring samples from difficult to access
populations like CEOs. We propose that the microfoundations movement has fundamentally
altered the relationship between strategy research and experimental methods such that
experiments are likely to be considered more appropriate, and even more necessary than in past
years. Experiments, we believe, have the potential to become a more frequently used tool
allowing the field to reap the benefits of micro theories in strategy (cf., Powell et al., 2011).
Illustrative Examples of Experiments that Strategy Scholars Could Deploy
Our review reveals several areas in which scholars have recently begun to publish and
initiate experimental work. In this section, we discuss a sampling of specific opportunities for
future research along with illustrative examples or mock experiments that scholars could employ,
detailing how scholars can leverage best practices from strategy experiments (informed by our
review) and those from other fields. To organize this section, we develop and detail illustrations
that demonstrate how experiments could enhance strategic management scholarship in two
important ways. We draw on recent work which examined the advancing state of knowledge in
strategy (Duhaime, Hitt and Lyles, 2021) as a basis to illustrate specific experimental
opportunities with high potential to advance the strategic management literature. Specifically,
Duhaime and colleagues emphasized areas including sustainability strategies and a new and
unique understanding of stakeholder theory on which strategy research is likely to focus in the
future. We offer examples of future experimental research in these areas.
Experiments for Studying Sustainability Strategies. Sustainability is a concern for
firms as well as governments and will continue to increase in relevance as the effects of climate
change and other global disruptions become increasingly evident. Although it is well recognized
that the potentially devastating effects of climate change could have far reaching effects across
industries, the means by which managers respond to climate change is seldom studied for one
obvious reason; the most disruptive aspects of climate change involve future states that do not
yet exist. Indeed, considering hypothetical situations is where experiments, and particularly
mock-behavioral studies, have significant potential to contribute to strategic management
knowledge. Mock-behavioral studies can use human subjects and observe human decisions in
simulated environments in which decision-contexts can be manipulated and time accelerated.
As an illustration, a researcher could consider studying how executive board members
make long-term strategic plans and resource allocations in direct response to (hypothetical)
changes related to the global climate crisis. Although scholars have found that access to the
deliberations of boards is difficult to obtain, many aspects of executive team and board room
behaviors can be simplified and simulated in experiments because they are fundamentally
discussions and interactions between individuals and groups. Indeed, we know from other social
science fields that experiments can be very useful for evaluating group decisions as well as social
conformity within groups. For example, psychology researchers Gino, Ayal and Ariely (2009)
studied how one “bad apple” embedded within a group can alter the saliency of ethicality and
increase the likelihood that other group members will prioritize financial gain over concern for
ethical decision-making. In another experiment, entrepreneurship researchers Breugst and
Shepherd (2017) highlight how social context negatively influences affective reactions and team
dynamics under high uncertainty. Also, at the group level, Mannix, Neale, and Northcraft (1995)
manipulate organizational culture using vignettes and a negotiation simulation task. Findings
reveal that organizational culture influences resource allocations. Using a similar type of vignette
approach, strategic management scholars could manipulate aspects of organizational culture at
the board or executive team level. This would afford researchers a high degree of experimental
control when considering how organizational culture could influence the openness of executives
or the board to considering strategies that relate to climate threats.

Strategic management researchers might also consider how social pressure could alter
board-level strategic conformity related to sustainability strategizing, drawing for instance on
Asch’s (1956) classic social conformity experiments. Using experimental social conformity
designs strategic management researchers could consider if strategic level conformity influences
board decisions related to sustainability issues. For example, a researcher could adapt Asch’s
classic design to the context of strategic management by focusing factors that might affect
executives’ willingness to deviate from consensus including political ideologies, the salience of
the potential crisis, or the individual need for cognition. For example, the experiment could take
place in a company boardroom with actual board members or executives serving as confederates
(a situation with very high ecological validity) or might take place via an online Qualtrics survey
in which the participant is shown foil engagements from other hypothetical board members.
These approaches could be an effective way to assess how social influence could affect board
decisions related to climate crisis issues, complementing current archival approaches, and
weighing the influence of factors and processes that might alter the deliberations and perspective
taking of boards related to the impending climate crisis.
Experimental research could also be used to study other important strategic management
questions related to sustainability. For example, an experiment could be used to test how climate
change salience (via priming) influences global alliance decisions and transactions between firms
with differing levels of primed environmental concern. Other prospective research that could be
tested experimentally includes how firms in threatened industries (e.g., petroleum) orchestrate
strategic pivots under different (experimental) conditions, or how an increased emphasis on
sustainability affects the characteristics firm stakeholders desire in a prospective CEO (possibly
via conjoint analysis or a policy capturing experiment).

Experiments for Studying Stakeholder Theory. Very few studies in our review
specifically considered stakeholder theory (e.g., Choi & Shepherd, 2005). However, in recent
years, both scholars (e.g., Barney and Mackey, 2021) and prominent business leaders (e.g.,
Benioff, 2019; Business Roundtable, 2019) have publicly stressed the importance of adopting a
holistic stakeholder perspective. Barney and Mackey (2021) suggest that some of the most
central theories in the field of strategic management could be affected by a corporate shift toward
renewed stakeholder logic. Yet, given the nascency of this phenomenon, little archival data are
available that allow researchers to compare how managerial shifts toward stakeholder logics
influence strategic decision-making. Similar to issues of sustainability, the lack of available data
provides an opportunity to leverage experiments, particularly designs that feature “logic
priming” techniques.
To illustrate ways in which strategic management scholars could leverage existing
experimental paradigms to understand a shift to a stakeholder logic we turn to the organizational
behavior literature. Kay and colleagues (2004) developed a series of logic priming experiments
to determine if implicitly presented primes from material objects would influence individual
logics and associated behavioral norms (i.e., the presence of books as a prop to prime an
educational logic). They found that simple exposure to settings such as boardrooms or objects
such as briefcases increased the likelihood that participants would adopt a “competitive” logic
and decrease their tendency to rely on a “cooperative” logic, demonstrated through tasks
including accepting or rejecting monetary offers from other participants (see Messick, Moore &
Bazerman, 1997; Robert & Carnevale, 1997; Thaler, 1988). Strategic management scholars
could adapt this paradigm and present participants with organizational primes that relate to
shareholder versus stakeholder scenarios. For example, scholars interested in how dominant
shareholder versus stakeholder logics affect strategic decisions could prime participants with
corporate versus stakeholder cues to determine if situational primes could influence the use of
competitive versus stakeholder logic.
Other potentially important topics that could be explored via experiments include how
relations with stakeholders affects firm risk-taking (proximity or intensity of stakeholder
relationships could be experimentally manipulated from high to low). Choi and Shepherd (2005)
point out that catering to certain stakeholders may require trade-offs relative to other
stakeholders and call for additional studies on the interest in and impact of various types of
stakeholders on firm decisions. Other studies could consider how stakeholder pressure, influence,
or co-creation of a product could affect different types of strategy decisions. Overall, we argue
that experiments represent a major opportunity to carry out unique research on stakeholders
either through selecting respondents from specific stakeholder groups or priming the concerns of
specific stakeholder groups to respondents. Integrated ideas from the two proceeding sections,
we note that scholars could even investigate questions at the intersection of sustainability and
stakeholder theory, such as the effects of evolving stakeholder attitudes towards environmental
sustainability on firm behaviors (e.g., the likelihood that a firm would adopt a green CSR
program in direct response to stakeholders) or how stakeholders might influence firm efforts to
reduce their carbon footprint (e.g., through purchasing carbon offsets, allowing employees to
telecommute, building higher efficiency buildings, etc.). Such questions are likely to be
increasingly relevant to firms in the future and given the absence of historic data on such topics,
experimental methods provide scholars the ability to make important progress.
A Best Practice Guide for Conducting Experiments in Strategy
Based on our comprehensive review of strategic management experiments and prior

experience with experimental methodologies, we have developed a guide for strategy scholars
interested in conducting randomized experiments as an online appendix2. The guide consolidates
valuable insights from existing studies such as those described above along with innovative
experimental design practices in related fields. The guide presents (a) Initial considerations for
planning your study (b) The basic mechanics of the experimental method, (c) Experimental
methods considerations that are specific to strategy research, and (d) Additional/advanced
experimental methods considerations.
The guide is primarily intended to aid researchers who are relatively new to experiments,
allowing them to get started with planning an experiment. Several design considerations are put
forth in this guide including concerns that are somewhat unique to conducting experiments in the
strategic management context. By no means is this guide intended to be fully exhaustive of all
experimental considerations. Rather it should be used in conjunction with this review paper and
other best practice papers and texts on experimental research. We believe experiments constitute
an underused methodology that has significant potential for strategic management researchers,
and we hope this guide can serve as a catalyst for novel experimental work in our field.
CONCLUSION
Given the importance of establishing causality in strategic management research, our
review suggests that experiments have a tremendous opportunity to help advance knowledge in
the strategic management field. To stimulate future use of experimental methodology, we
conducted a review of critical knowledge and theoretical advancement that have been gained in
the field from extant experiments. We also summarized methodological approaches taken by
experimental work to recommend best practices. Finally, we suggested specific studies for future
experiments in strategic management and provided actionable best practice recommendations.

For newcomers, our research provides value by outlining the specific opportunities to advance
the theory, methods, and the breadth of topics that novel experiments in strategy can address. For
more experienced experimental researchers, our review provides a broad overlay of the domain
of strategy experiments, which can be used to help seasoned experimental researchers bridge
sub-disciplines, presenting them with a path to accelerate their research and their use of
experiments in several streams of strategic management research.
For a downloadable pdf version of the research guide go to https://www.researchguides.org/

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FOOTNOTES
1. Priem, Walters, and Li (2011) articulated the role that judgment policy studies could play in
spanning the multilevel nature of many judgements within organizations, including key questions
pertaining to strategic management and strategy implementation. Chatterji and colleagues (2016)
provide recommendations for and two demonstrations of field experiments; they complement
this work with an online appendix that provides counts of the number of experiments in leading
strategy and management journals compared to leading economics journals, illustrating the
relative lack of experiments in strategy and management. Finally, an essay by Di Stefano and
Gutierrez (2018) reports percentages comparing the abundance of experiments versus non-
experiments for selected management journals and categorizes these experiments as laboratory
or field experiments.
2. The experiment best practice guide and checklist is available as an online supplement and can
be downloaded as a PDF at https://www.researchguides.org/
3. Our search was conducted on all articles that were either in print or available online as of
August of 2020. As a result, our sample includes one paper (Raithel & Hock, 2021) that was
available online when we conducted our search and has since been made available in print, and
been given a 2021 publication date.

Table 1
Number of Strategy Experiments by Theory
Theory Number of Citations (Number of Experiments in Paper)

Experiments
Bapna, 2019 (1); Connelly, Ketchen Jr, Gangloff, &
Signaling Theory 9
Shook, 2016 (1); Jago & Laurin, 2019 (7)
Krause, Whitler & Semadeni, 2014 (2); Li, Krause, Qin,
Agency Theory 5 Zhang, Zhu, Lin, & Xu, 2018 (1); Tosi, Brownlee, Silva
& Katz, 2003 (2)
Behavioral Decision Theory 4 Brooks, Highhouse, Russell & Mohr, 2003 (4)
Crilly, Ni & Jiang, 2016 (1); Jacquart & Antonakis, 2015
Attribution Theory 3
(1); Shepherd & Patzelt, 2015 (1)
Kanze, Huang, Conley & Higgins, 2018 (1); Stam, van
Regulatory Focus Theory 3
Knippenberg, Wisse & Pieterse, 2018 (2)
Theory of Statistical
3 Younkin & Kuppuswamy, 2018 (3)
Discrimination
Behavioral Theory of the Hohnisch, Pittnauer, Selten & Pfingsten, 2016 (1); Keum
2
Firm & See, 2017 (1)
Game Theory 2 Amaldoss & Jain, 2002 (1); Arend, 2009 (1)
Management Control Theory 2 Shah & Swaminathan, 2008 (2)
Power Theory 2 Souitaris, Zerbinati, Peng & Shepherd, 2020 (2)
Theory of Disconfirmation of
2 Wang, Wu, Pechmann & Wang, 2019 (2)
Expectations
Case-Based Decision Theory 1 Lovallo, Clarke & Camerer, 2012 (1)
Commitment Theory 1 Jacguemet, Luchini, Rosaz & Shogren, 2019 (1)
Complexity Theory 1 Okhuysen & Eisenhardt, 2002 (1)
Core Self-Evaluation Theory 1 Chng, Rodgers, Shih & Song, 2012 (1)
Crisis Response Match
1 Raithel & Hock, 2021 (1)
Theory
Emotional Contagion Theory 1 Li, Chen, Kotha & Fisher, 2017 (1)
Expectation States Theory 1 Bigelow, Lundmark, Parks & Wuebker, 2014 (1)
Image Theory 1 Connelly, Shi, Walker & Hersel, 2020 (1)
Impression Management
1 van Balen, Tarakci & Sood, 2019 (1)
Theory
Institutional Theory 1 Raaijmakers, Vermeulen, Meeus & Zietsma, 2015 (1)
Property Rights Theory 1 Agarwal, Croson & Mahoney, 2010 (1)
Real Options Theory 1 Clingingsmith & Shane, 2018 (1)
Self-Concept Based Theory 1 Bono & Judge, 2003 (1)
Social Cognitive and Social
1 Huang & Paterson, 2017 (1)
Learning Theory
Social Identity Theory 1 Venus, Stam & van Knippenberg, 2019 (1)
Stakeholder Theory 1 Choi & Shepherd, 2005 (1)
Status Characteristics Theory 1 Jung, Vissa & Pich, 2017 (1)
Theory of Choice Homophily 1 Greenberg & Mollick, 2017 (1)
Table 2
Summary of Exemplary Strategy Experiments by Topic Area
Sample
Experiment Dependent
Authors Year Participants Key Finding / Contribution
Type Variable
(Number)
Competitive Strategy
Incumbent’s
Low-price market entrants
Luoma, Falk, price response,
Randomized can reduce incumbent
Totzek, perceived
2018 Between Managers (656) response by appearing high
Tikkanen, & aggressiveness,
Subjects in aggressiveness or low in
Mrozek commitment, and
commitment
consequence
As predicted by game theory,
Winning
individuals or entities that
frequency,
have less to gain from
Amaldoss & Randomized Students payoffs,
2002 winning a direct competition
Jain Mixed (36) frequency of
are paradoxically more likely
investing all
to out-invest their
capital
competition and win
Cooperative Strategy
Letter of the law violations
Trusting tend to be perceived as more
intentions, intentional than spirit of the
Randomized Mturk (97) and
Harmon, Kim, perceived law violations, and thus are
2015 Between MBA students
& Mayer intentionality, more damaging to trust and
Subjects (107)
willingness to lead to a greater willingness
punish by the wronged party to
pursue legal action
Alliance success, Both aligned economic
Agarwal, Randomized Business transfer of incentives and
Croson, & 2010 Between students, mostly resources, communication are needed to
Mahoney Subjects MBA (405) resources in maximize the probability of
alliance success in strategic alliances
Corporate Strategy
Percent of Managers tend to deviate
respondents who from profit maximizing
would make the decisions due to confusing
Shapira & Randomized MBA students
2014 profit versus marginal and average profits,
Shaver Within Subjects (216)
nonprofit particularly when average
maximizing profits are accessible and
investment relevant.
Internal capital allocations
show partition dependence
and a bias towards equality
Randomized
Bardolet, Fox, Executive MBA between divisions or
2011 Between Fund allocation
& Lovallo students (64) business units based on the
Subjects
centralization or
decentralization of the
budgeting procedure
Entrepreneurship and Strategy

Failure to exit,
various measures
Compensation type can
Elfinbein. Randomized Undergraduate of belief
affect both belief and
Knott, & 2017 Between business (probability that
behavior, and lead to sub-
Croson Subjects students (133) they are in a high
optimally timed exits
profit firm for
example)
Provides evidence that high
rates of entrepreneurial
Randomized Participants failure are more attributable
Artinger &
2016 Between (does not Market entry to psychological factors like
Powell
Subjects specify, 112) overconfidence than
statistical factors like random
error
Global Strategy
Liability of foreignness is
Company
Randomized NGO attenuated to a greater extent
Crilly, Ni, & impression,
2016 Between Representatives when firms engage in “do-
Jiang internal
Subjects (29) good” CSR compared with
attribution
“do-no-harm” CSR
Host country executives
consider a variety of factors
International
including partner firm
joint venture
resources, potential
attractiveness,
transaction hazards, and
Tong, Reuer, Conjoint/Policy Chinese divestiture
2015 remedial mechanisms in
Tyler, & Zhang Capturing executives (84) attractiveness,
determining whether they
and preference
prefer foreign direct
for IJV versus
investment in the form of
divestiture
international joint ventures
or divestitures
Knowledge & Innovation
Disclosure of Firms can use corporate
Randomized
Flammer & previous social responsibility
2019 Between Students (585)
Kacperczyk employer’s trade programs to help protect
Subjects
secrets against knowledge leakage
Knowledge transfer is
determined not only by its
context (recipient reputation,
degree of competition, and
Di Stefano, Randomized Head chefs Knowledge
2014 visibility of behavior), but
King, & Verona Mixed (492) transfer intention
also by the expectation that
the recipient will conform to
certain norms of knowledge
use
Stakeholder Strategy
Organizations receive less
blame for unpopular
actions when they are
Randomized Punishment and recommended by an
Coffman & 2019
Between Students (716) punishment adviser because the
Gotthard-Real
Subjects average presence of advice shifts
stakeholder perceptions of
both the necessity and
morality of the action
The benefits of CSR and
Amount and penalties of CSI are driven
favorability of at least in part by
Randomized feedback, and perceptions of warmth and
Shea & Hawn 2019 Students (88)
Mixed whether they competence, and vary
bought the pen based on country
they had tested characteristics (such as
warmth)
Strategic Human Capital
Field experiments in
Chatterji, Employees at strategy can be feasibly
Randomized Cooperation
Findley, Jensen, large medical conducted. For example,
2016 Between (interacting with
Meier, & device firm stronger (or more salient)
Subjects question emails)
Nielson (4,185) identity increases
employee cooperation
Enhancing human and/or
financial capital (through
Business
business training and a
performance,
Microenterprise grant, respectively)
Berge, Bjorvatn, Randomized business
2015 owners improves a variety of
& Tungodden mixed structure, and
(644) performance outcomes for
management
male entrepreneurs, but
practices
less so for female
entrepreneurs
Strategic Leadership & Governance
Jacguemet, Voluntary taking of a
Randomized Students
Luchini, Rosaz, 2019 Lying truth-telling oath decreases
mixed (480)
& Shogren the incidence of lying
Leader self-sacrifice
van increases follower
Randomized Perceived
Knippenberg & Students performance and
2005 Between leadership
van (479) assessment of the leader,
Subjects effectiveness
Knippenberg especially if leader
prototypicality is low
Strategy Process
“Outside view” analogies,
Value of inside
Lovallo, Clarke, Randomized Private equity tend to result in better
2012 versus outside
& Camerer Within Subjects employees (33) decision performance than
view forecasts
“inside view” analogies.
Decision rules and
Randomized Performance
MBA students performance are improved
Gary & Wood 2011 Between (cumulative
(63) when managers have more
Subjects profit)
accurate mental models
Table 3
Typology of Participant Roles for Strategy Experiments
Participant When is the approach Considerations and Most Relevant Indicative

Example
Role most beneficial? Difficulties Interest Groups Cites
Enhanced Competitive
feasibility and ease Dynamics,
Proxies for or Amaldoss
Market of measurement; Cooperative
Equivalent to Examining potential & Staelin,
simulation concerns about the Strategy,
Firms/ responses of firms 2010;
studies overlap of Corporate
Organizations Fang, 2012
individual and firm Strategy,
decision making Global strategy
Examining general
Strategic
Imagining cognition of Agarwal et
Leadership,
oneself on a executives or al., 2010;
Proxies for Behavioral
board of managers or Similarity of Connelly,
Firm Actors or Strategy,
directors, and evaluating decisions respondents to their Shi, et al.,
Decision- Knowledge &
ranking CEO that assume rational proxy role 2020; Gary
Makers Innovation,
selection decision-making with & Wood,
Strategic
criteria some allowance for 2011
Human Capital
behavioral variance.
Representativeness
of respondents to
Asking firm or industry
respondents to Examining the stakeholders;
estimate the responses of various relying on Choi &
Stakeholder
likelihood of stakeholder groups to respondents who Shepherd,
Proxies for Strategy,
them providing hypothetical actions or may be outside the 2005; Jago
Stakeholders Behavioral
support to isolating firm actions influence of & Laurin,
Strategy
organizations from other influential 2019
with various confounding events cultural/social
characteristics factors that impact
stakeholder
responses
When testing the
effects of a firm Entrepreneur-
Testing the May be difficult to
characteristic such as ship and
effects of a get larger firms to Anderson
business model or firm Strategy,
Firms as manipulation participate. Often et al., 2018;
structure; may be Cooperative
Participants like training on used in bottom of Camuffo et
particularly useful Strategy,
firm the pyramid al., 2020
(and feasible) in Corporate
performance contexts
entrepreneurial Strategy
contexts
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SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
Table S1
Answers from a Panel of Strategy Scholars to Questions about the use of Experiments
Question Notable Themes Representative Quote(s)

Experiments are difficult to “Strategy research mainly focuses on firm-level issues. It does
use with a firm level of not sound effective and/or doable by using experiments to study
analysis firm-level activities which are often more complex.”
What are one or Lack of training “I have not had the proper training to do it, and I would probably
two major not have the technical resources (labs to run the simulation).”
reasons
that you would Lack of reviewer receptivity “They are unlikely to be well received by the best journals.”
not
use experiments Access to participants is “Given my focus on boards of directors, it would be challenging
in your problematic to get a sample of directors who would participate in a study
research? employing an experimental design.”
External validity “Difficult to simulate the gravity and implications of strategic

decisions in an experiment – eg.. a CEO’s performance or
reputation is permanently affected by their decisions.”
Yes. Difficulties enrolling “Most of the strategy research may need top executives as the
participants and overcoming experiment participants. It will be very difficult and costly as
external validity and level of well to put them into the lab.”
analysis issues
“Yes. My sense is that the typical experiment applied in strategy
research most often involves the use of individual human
subjects… This would involve the difficult task of developing
cross-level theory.”
“Yes. In addition to the above answers in (a) [answers to the first

question], the strategic management scholars seem to view
Do you think experiments as having too much control such that the scenario
that scholars may not reflect the real-life situation.”
perceive
experiments as No, they are inappropriate, “I think it is more an appropriate than a difficult issue of using
difficult in not necessarily more experiments in strategy research.”
strategy? If so difficult
why? “I think strategy scholars believe they are difficult to publish. I
think they would find them difficult to fit to questions of interests
to other strategy scholars.”
“The methodology itself is not difficult; although, certainly

designing an experiment that properly identifies a causal effect
must be done with care. At the same time, strategy scholars may
perceive them as more difficult to sell to reviewers and, in turn,
publish. This partly goes back to my first point that some
research questions in strategy do not as easily lend themselves to
this methodological approach.”
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Level of analysis “The levels of analysis and measurement which are usually at the
individual level in experiments. That can work to study
entrepreneurs or CEOs (or a small team) but I am not sure about
using this for organizational level variables which are, usually,
the variables of interest or the dependent variable in strategy
research. Is the experiment really describing what’s going on in
the firm?”
Sample size “Sample size would be another one [concern]. If we design a 2X2
scenario, we need a large number of top executives to
Are there participate.”
unique
concerns about Familiarity with method “Many scholars are not familiar with this method.”
using
experiments in
strategy versus
other related
Concerns with the review “I believe that there are specific biases or perceptions among
process strategy reviewers that may reduce their acceptance of
disciplines?
experiments in strategy research. For example, though a properly
executed randomized experimental design should address
concerns regarding endogeneity, strategy reviewers have formed
such a habit of criticizing studies through endogeneity that they
may unreasonably or mistakenly reject experiments. Also, the use
of experiments may lead to split reviewer teams – one or more
macro-level scholars combined with someone from the micro-
level. In those cases, each reviewer may understand and properly
evaluate the portion of the empirical study in her or his own area,
while rejecting the unfamiliar part.”
Decision making It seems the area of behavioral strategy and executive decision
making would benefit from this approach.
Many with the help of I would like to say that many strategy areas should be able to use
creativity experiments if you can use this method creatively. For example,
In what areas,
innovation, strategy implementation (e.g., new program
do you believe
adoption), or event-related studies (e.g., product recall, policy
strategy
changes) could be experimentally designed.
experiments
could provide
the greatest “I think the best use of experiments in strategy research is to
As a complement to complement other research methods. While archival research
value? conventional methods using large datasets has tremendous utility for the generalizability
of findings, it can often leave gaps in the face validity of our
research or limit our ability to directly examine underlying
mechanisms in our theoretical models. A well-designed and well-
executed experiment can nicely fill these gaps.”
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Table S2*
List of Strategy Experiments Appearing from 2000-2020
Competitive Strategy
Abramson, Currim, & Sarin, 2005; Amaldoss & Jain, 2002; Hossain, Minor, & Morgan, 2011;
Luoma, Falk, Totzek, Tikkanen, & Mrozek, 2018; Moore, Oesch, & Zietsma, 2007; Radzevick &
Moore, 2011; Wang, Wu, Pechmann, & Wang, 2019
Cooperative Strategy
Agarwal, Anand, Bercovitz, & Croson, 2012; Agarwal, Croson, & Mahoney, 2010; Amaldoss &
Staelin, 2010; Arend, 2009; Connelly, Miller, & Devers, 2012; Fonti, Maoret, & Whitbred, 2017;
Harmon, Kim, & Mayer, 2015; Kachra & White, 2008; Lazzarini, Miller, & Zenger, 2008;
Mellewigt, Thomas, Weller, & Zajac, 2017; Montmarquette, Rulliere, Villeval, & Zeiliger, 2004;
Patzelt & Shepherd, 2008; Reuer, Tong, Tyler, & Ariño, 2013; Schillebeeckx, Chaturvedi, George,
& King, 2016; Shah & Swaminathan, 2008; Tong, Reuer, Tyler, & Zhang, 2015; Weber &
Camerer, 2003
Corporate Strategy
Agarwal, Anand, Bercovitz, & Croson, 2012; Audia, Locke, & Smith, 2000; Bardolet, Fox, &
Lovallo, 2011; Crilly, 2017; Døjbak Håkonsson, Eskildsen, Argote, Mønster, Burton, & Obel,
2016; Elfinbein, Knott, & Croson, 2017; Gary, Yang, Yetton, & Sterman, 2017; Gutierrez, Astebro,
& Obloj, 2020; Hohnisch, Pittnauer, Selten, & Pfingsten, 2016; Jones Christensen, Siemsen, &
Balasubramanian, 2015; LaRiviere, McMahon, & Neilson, 2018; Lawrence, 2020; Massey & Wu,
2005; Meier, Stephenson, & Perkowski, 2019; Phadnis, Caplice, Sheffi, & Singh, 2015; Shapira &
Shaver, 2014; Stam, van Knippenberg, Wisse, & Pieterse, 2018; Tosi, Brownlee, Silva, & Katz,
2003; Younkin & Kashkooli, 2020
Entrepreneurship and Strategy
Anderson, Chandy, & Zia, 2018; Artinger & Powell, 2016; Bapna, 2019; Berge, Bjorvatn, &
Tungodden, 2015; Bigelow, Lundmark, Parks, & Wuebker, 2014; Burtch, Ghose, & Wattal, 2015;
Camuffo, Cordova, Gambardella, & Spina, 2020; Chatterji, Delecourt, Hasan, & Koning, 2019;
Chen, Yao, & Kotha, 2009; Clarke, Cornelissen, & Healey, 2019; Clingingsmith & Shane, 2018;
Elfinbein, Knott, & Croson, 2017; Fisher, Stevenson, Neubert, Burnell, & Kuratko, 2020;
Greenberg & Mollick, 2017; Hoogendoorn, Parker, & van Praag, 2017; Huang & Pearce, 2015;
Jones Christensen, Siemsen, & Balasubramanian, 2015; Jung, Vissa, & Pich, 2017; Kanze, Huang,
Conley, & Higgins, 2018; Li, Chen, Kotha, & Fisher, 2017; Moore, Oesch, & Zietsma, 2007;
Radoynovska & King, 2019; Ranganathan, 2018; Shepherd & Patzelt, 2015; Slade Shantz,
Kistruck, Pacheco, & Webb, 2020; Souitaris, Zerbinati, Peng, & Shepherd, 2020; van Balen,
Tarakci, & Sood, 2019; Younkin & Kashkooli, 2020; Younkin & Kuppuswamy, 2018
Global Strategy
Chatterji, Findley, Jensen, Meier, & Nielson, 2016; Crilly, Ni, & Jiang, 2016; Shea & Hawn, 2019;
Tong, Reuer, Tyler, & Zhang, 2015
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Knowledge & Innovation

Abramson, Currim, & Sarin, 2005; Berg, 2016; Choudhury, Starr, & Agarwal, 2020; Di Stefano,
King, & Verona, 2014; Døjbak Håkonsson, Eskildsen, Argote, Mønster, Burton, & Obel, 2016;
Fang, 2012; Flammer & Kacperczyk, 2019; Franke, Poetz, & Schreier, 2014; Gary, Wood, &
Pillinger, 2012; Green, Rao, & Rothschild, 2019; Kachra & White, 2008; Kane, 2010; Keum &
See, 2017; Lawrence, 2020; Mueller, Melwani, Loewenstein, & Deal, 2018; Okhuysen &
Eisenhardt, 2002; Shore, Bernstein, & Lazer, 2015; van Balen, Tarakci, & Sood, 2019; Wang, Wu,
Pechmann, & Wang, 2019
Stakeholder Strategy
Baker, Derfler-Rozin, Pitesa, & Johnson, 2019; Brooks, Highhouse, Russell, & Mohr, 2003; Choi
& Shepherd, 2005; Coffman & Gotthard-Real, 2019; Connelly, Ketchen Jr, Gangloff, & Shook,
2016; Crilly, Ni, & Jiang, 2016; Elsbach & Elofson, 2000; Exley, 2020; Flammer & Kacperczyk,
2019; Folkes & Whang, 2003; Greenberg & Mollick, 2017; Hahl & Ha, 2020; Jacquart &
Antonakis, 2015; Jago & Laurin, 2019; Kim, John, Rogers, & Norton, 2019; Krause, Whitler, &
Semadeni, 2014; LaRiviere, McMahon, & Neilson, 2018; Lee, Adbi, & Singh, 2020; Raaijmakers,
Vermeulen, Meeus, & Zietsma, 2015; Radoynovska & King, 2019; Raithel & Hock, 2021; Sauer,
Thomas-Hunt, & Morris, 2010; Shea & Hawn, 2019; Shepherd & Patzelt, 2015
Strategic Human Capital
Berge, Bjorvatn, & Tungodden, 2015; Chatterji, Findley, Jensen, Meier, & Nielson, 2016;
Choudhury, Starr, & Agarwal, 2020; Hoogendoorn, Parker, & van Praag, 2017
Strategic Leadership & Governance
Bono & Judge, 2003; Carton & Lucas, 2018; Carton, Murphy, & Clark, 2014; Chng, Rodgers,
Shih, & Song, 2012; Connelly, Ketchen Jr, Gangloff, & Shook, 2016; Connelly, Li, Shi, & Lee,
2020; Connelly, Miller, & Devers, 2012; Connelly, Shi, Walker, & Hersel, 2020; Crilly, 2017;
Gary & Wood, 2011; Hekman, Johnson, Foo, & Yang, 2017; Huang & Paterson, 2017; Jacguemet,
Luchini, Rosaz, & Shogren, 2019; Jacquart & Antonakis, 2015; Lee, Adbi, & Singh, 2020; Li,
Krause, Qin, Zhang, Zhu, Lin, & Xu, 2018; Lovallo, Clarke, & Camerer, 2012; Mitchell, Shepherd,
& Sharfman, 2011; Montmarquette, Rulliere, Villeval, & Zeiliger, 2004; Mueller, Melwani,
Loewenstein, & Deal, 2018; Reitzig & Maciejovsky, 2015; Reuer, Tong, Tyler, & Ariño, 2013;
Sauer, Thomas-Hunt, & Morris, 2010; Slade Shantz, Kistruck, Pacheco, & Webb, 2020; Souitaris,
Zerbinati, Peng, & Shepherd, 2020; Stam, van Knippenberg, Wisse, & Pieterse, 2018; Tosi,
Brownlee, Silva, & Katz, 2003; van Dijke, De Cremer, & Mayer, 2010; van Knippenberg & van
Knippenberg, 2005; Venus, Stam, & van Knippenberg, 2019; Voors, Turley, Bulte, Kontoleon, &
List, 2018
Strategy Process
Camuffo, Cordova, Gambardella, & Spina, 2020; Fang, 2012; Gary & Wood, 2011; Gary, Wood,
& Pillinger, 2012; Gary, Yang, Yetton, & Sterman, 2017; Green, Rao, & Rothschild, 2019;
Gutierrez, Astebro, & Obloj, 2020; Hohnisch, Pittnauer, Selten, & Pfingsten, 2016; Keum & See,
2017; Lovallo, Clarke, & Camerer, 2012; Mitchell, Shepherd, & Sharfman, 2011; Patzelt &
Shepherd, 2008; Phadnis, Caplice, Sheffi, & Singh, 2015; Raaijmakers, Vermeulen, Meeus, &
Zietsma, 2015; Reitzig & Maciejovsky, 2015; Shapira & Shaver, 2014; Wright & Goodwin, 2002
*If applicable, articles were placed (and listed) in more than one interest group
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Table S3
Number of Strategy Experiments by Experimental Design
Experimental Design Number and Percentage

Random Between Subjects 127 (71%)
Random Within Subjects 20 (11%)
Random Mixed 20 (11%)
Conjoint/Policy Capture 12 (7%)
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Table S4
Number of Strategy Experiments by Experimental Context
Experimental Context Number and Percentage

Lab Experiment – Traditional lab 54 (30%)
Lab Experiment – Classroom 29 (15%)
Online/Mail Experiment 64 (35%)
Field Experiment 27 (15%)
Experiment by Phone 2 (1%)
Context Not Mentioned 7 (4%)
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Table S5
Number of Strategy Experiments by Population Sampled
Sample Detail Number and Percentage

Undergraduate/MBA Students 82 (44%)
EMBA Students 10 (5%)
CEOs 1 (1%)
Other Executives/Board Members 5 (3%)
Other Business Professionals 24 (13%)
MTurk 36 (20%)
Investors 5 (3%)
Other 21 (11%)
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Experiments in Strategy Research: A Critical Review and Future Research

Article in Journal of Management · August 2021

Mark T. Bolinger Matt Josefy

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Regan Stevenson Michael A Hitt

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Experiments in Strategy Research: A Critical Review and Future Research Opportunities

In-Press at Journal of Management

For published version, please check: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/

We also emphasize approaches for how experiments can be instrumental in extending

management theories and accelerating behavioral microfoundations of strategy research. In light

offering a platform for future experiment-based research in strategic management.

Keywords: experiments, strategic management, review, research design; corporate social

responsibility; cooperative strategy; mergers & acquisitions; alliances

EXPERIMENTS IN STRATEGY RESEARCH: A CRITICAL REVIEW AND FUTURE

Identifying the antecedents of firm performance is a primary goal of strategic

methodologies remain uncommon in strategic management research despite being an excellent

option for isolating causal relationships (Hill et al., 2021).

Frequently, strategic management scholars seek to identify contexts that approximate

practice methodology guide as part of our call to action2.

We make two primary contributions to strategic management literature. First, we

perspective, including corporate strategy, cooperative strategy, strategic leadership, and

we develop as a guide when creating experiments to supplement existing archival research in

their particular interest area.

Knott, 2018), we contribute a specific typology of approaches to strategy experiments that

acknowledges the different considerations necessary to employ random assignment based on

strategic management theory.

EXPERIMENTS IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

measurement cannot all be maximized simultaneously (McGrath, 1981). Accordingly,

benefits of multiple methodologies while simultaneously mitigating their weaknesses. However,

experimental method in strategy research).

in an experiment – e.g., a CEO’s performance or reputation is permanently affected by their

decisions.” In contrast, although it is commonly accepted that experiments in general and

laboratory experiments in particular increase confidence in internal validity due to precise

often been preferred to models that focus on maximizing internal validity.

experiment was “effective and/or doable.” With connections to the industrial-organization

Third, an alternate method to establish causality is to conduct longitudinal studies or

Semadeni, Withers, & Certo, 2014).

Fourth, pragmatically, strategic management doctoral programs tend to prioritize

simulation).” Furthermore, expecting students or new faculty members to obtain proficiency in

experiments (Miller & Tsang, 2011).

Why Strategic Management Scholars Should Use Experiments More Often

management scholars use experiments? We present three main arguments.

to illuminate causal inference” (Shadish et al., 2002:18), so well-designed experiments featuring

effects of individual actions under highly specified, albeit constrained, conditions.

Second, data for a particular strategic management phenomenon of interest may be

to disruptive events (e.g., an unforeseen pandemic) or blockbuster acquisitions. Experiments can

how strategic decision-makers respond to a variety of situations, emergent or hypothetical, with a

otherwise be a “black-box” when archival data alone are used.

proxies for variables associated with cognitive or perceptual constructs. By contrast,

opportunity to reimagine how experiments can be deployed in the strategy field.

We conducted a comprehensive review of published experiments in strategic

issues of Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization

Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Management

2000 to August of 2020 as described below.

In addition to categorizing and reviewing papers by strategic management topic and

A Review of Strategy Experiments by Topic

summary by theory in Table 1 and a detailed review of by topic below.

We structured our topic review according to widely accepted strategic management