Institutionalized dualism: statistical significance testing as myth and ceremony

Abstract

Several well-known statisticians regard significance testing as a deeply problematic procedure in statistical inference. Yet, in-depth discussion of null hy- pothesis significance testing (NHST) has largely been absent from the literature on or- ganizations or, more specifically, management control systems. This article attempts to redress this oversight by drawing on neoinstitutional theory to frame, analyze, and explore the NHST problem. Regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive forces partly explain the longevity of NHST in organization studies. The unintended nega- tive consequences of NHST include a reinforcement of the academic-practitioner di- vide, an obstacle to the growth of knowledge, discouragement of study replications, and mechanization of researcher decision making. An appreciation of these institu- tional explanations for NHST as well as the harm caused by NHST may ultimately help researchers develop superior methodological alternatives to a controversial sta- tistical technique.