REVISITING THE FILE DRAWER PROBLEM IN META-ANALYSIS

The file drawer problem is considered one of the biggest threats to the validity of meta-analytic conclusions. The assumption is that null results are less likely to be published in primary-level studies and, hence, less likely to be included in meta-analytic reviews, thereby resulting in an upwardly biased sample of primary-level effect size estimates and upwardly biased meta-analytically derived effect sizes. We conducted three studies to assess the extent of the file drawer problem. In Study 1, we examined correlation matrices including 50,841 effect sizes published in Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP) and Personnel Psychology (PPsych) between 1985 and 2009 and found that 47.76% of those correlations are not statistically significant. In Study 2, we examined 6,935 correlations used as input in 51 meta-analyses published in Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, JAP, PPsych, and Strategic Management Journal between 1982 and 2009 and found that 45.25% are not statistically significant. I...