Experimentally Validated Surveys: Potential for Studying Cognitive and Behavioral Issues in Management

Abstract

In management, addressing behavioral and cognitive issues empirically is particularly challenging, as it requires combining both internal and external validity with multilevel data collection. The traditional quantitative methodologies used in this area, which are surveys and laboratory experiments, are ill-suited for this purpose. This paper presents a promising, innovative methodology, the experimentally validated survey (EVS), which allows researchers to face this challenge. The EVS relies on the implementation of survey questions previously validated by a controlled experiment. This paper adopts a threefold approach: descriptive, achieved by proposing a structured review of the recent body of literature; practical, achieved by discussing technical issues that one may encounter while running an EVS; and critical, achieved by discussing the advantages and limitations of such methodology for management scholars. Our main contribution is initiating a dynamic movement toward the importation of this innovative methodology into management research.