e-ISSN: Pending

Browse the failure-mode index

60 real negative results, null findings, and replication failures in Decision Sciences. Search the index →

WASTE indexes published research — it does not host or republish full papers. Each entry is a metadata record compiled from open scholarly databases; the abstract is shown in full only where the paper is openly licensed, otherwise a short excerpt under fair use. Classifications are automated and approximate.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Many Labs 5: Testing Pre-Data-Collection Peer Review as an Intervention to Increase Replicability

Charles R. Ebersole, Maya B. Mathur, Erica Baranski et al. · 2020 · Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science

Replication studies in psychological science sometimes fail to reproduce prior findings. If these studies use methods that are unfaithful to the original study or ineffective in eliciting the phenomenon of interest, then a failure to…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Signing at the beginning versus at the end does not decrease dishonesty

Ariella Kristal, Ashley V. Whillans, Max H. Bazerman et al. · 2020 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Honest reporting is essential for society to function well. However, people frequently lie when asked to provide information, such as misrepresenting their income to save money on taxes. A landmark finding published in PNAS [L. L. Shu, N. Mazar, F. Gino, D. Ariely, M. H. Bazerman, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 109, 15197–15200 (2012)] provided evidence for a simple way of encouraging honest reporting: asking people to sign a veracity statement at the beginning instead of at the end of a self-report form. Since this finding was published, various government agencies have adopted this practice.

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

An efficient stock market prediction model using hybrid feature reduction method based on variational autoencoders and recursive feature elimination

Hakan Gündüz · 2021 · Financial Innovation

Abstract In this study, the hourly directions of eight banking stocks in Borsa Istanbul were predicted using linear-based, deep-learning (LSTM) and ensemble learning (LightGBM) models. These models were trained with four different feature sets and their performances were evaluated in terms of accuracy and F-measure metrics. While the first experiments directly used the own stock features as the model inputs, the second experiments utilized reduced stock features through Variational AutoEncoders (VAE). In the last experiments, in order to grasp the effects of the other banking stocks on individ

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Predictability of machine learning techniques to forecast the trends of market index prices: Hypothesis testing for the Korean stock markets

Sujin Pyo, Jaewook Lee, Mincheol Cha et al. · 2017 · PLoS ONE

The prediction of the trends of stocks and index prices is one of the important issues to market participants. Investors have set trading or fiscal strategies based on the trends, and considerable research in various academic fields has been studied to forecast financial markets. This study predicts the trends of the Korea Composite Stock Price Index 200 (KOSPI 200) prices using nonparametric machine learning models: artificial neural network, support vector machines with polynomial and radial basis function kernels. In addition, this study states controversial issues and tests hypotheses abou

View details →
Replication FailureOpen accessDecision Sciences

Low replicability can support robust and efficient science

Stephan Lewandowsky, Klaus Oberauer · 2020 · Nature Communications

There is a broad agreement that psychology is facing a replication crisis. Even some seemingly well-established findings have failed to replicate. Numerous causes of the crisis have been identified, such as underpowered studies, publication bias, imprecise theories, and inadequate statistical procedures. The replication crisis is real, but it is less clear how it should be resolved. Here we examine potential solutions by modeling a scientific community under various different replication regimes. In one regime, all findings are replicated before publication to guard against subsequent replicat

View details →
Failed Experiment ReportDecision Sciences

Reducing Choice Overload without Reducing Choices

Tibor Besedeš, Cary Deck, Sudipta Sarangi et al. · 2015 · The Review of Economics and Statistics

Previous studies have demonstrated that a multitude of options can lead to choice overload, reducing decision quality. Through controlled experiments, we examine sequential choice architectures that enable the choice set to remain large…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

An Analysis of Bitcoin Price Based on VEC Model

Junpeng Wang, Xue Yubo, Minghao Liu · 2016

As the world's first completely decentralized digital payment system, the emergence of bitcoin represents a revolutionary phenomenon in financial markets. This paper mainly studies the fluctuations of bitcoin price and discusses weather…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Determinants of bank’s efficiency in an emerging economy: A data envelopment analysis approach

Saif Ullah, Abdul Majeed, József Popp · 2023 · PLoS ONE

This study aims to assess the influence of internal and external factors on the Efficiency of banks in Pakistan using the Data Envelopment Analysis Approach (DEA). Bank's Efficiency is measured through DEA Model using input and output variables. The input variable includes the number of employees, number of branches, administration expenses, non-interest expenses, and loan loss provisions. In contrast, the output variable consists of net interest income, net commissions, and total other income. This study considers the internal determinants of the bank's Efficiency as corporate governance, ent

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

A Model for Improving E-Tax Systems Adoption in Rural Zambia Based on the TAM Model

Patience Njina Soneka, Jackson Phiri · 2019 · Open Journal of Business and Management

The objective of this study was to assess the factors that influence the level of e-tax systems adoption in Zambia. The study focused on TaxOnline system used by domestic taxes division in Zambia. The study was conducted in rural Zambia. In this study, the researcher used Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The sample size was purposively selected from various taxpayers who were coming through to Zambia Revenue Authority Solwezi internet bureau. 100 semi structured survey questionnaires were distributed with 100% response. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The result

View details →
Replication FailureDecision Sciences

The Power of Replicated Measures to Increase Statistical Power

Marc-André Goulet, Denis Cousineau · 2019 · Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science

When running statistical tests, researchers can commit a Type II error, that is, fail to reject the null hypothesis when it is false. To diminish the probability of committing a Type II error (β), statistical power must be augmented.…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Towards end-to-end automation of AI research

Chris Lu, Cong Lu, R. T. Lange et al. · 2026 · Nature

Abstract The automation of science is a long-standing ambition in artificial intelligence (AI) research 1,2 . Although the community has made substantial progress in automating individual components of the scientific process, a system that autonomously navigates the entire research life cycle—from conception to publication—has remained out of reach. Here we present a pipeline for automating the entire scientific process end to end. We present The AI Scientist, which creates research ideas, writes code, runs experiments, plots and analyses data, writes the entire scientific manuscript, and perf

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportDecision Sciences

The fragility of statistically significant findings from randomised controlled trials in the urological literature

Vikram M. Narayan, Shreyas Gandhi, Kristin Chrouser et al. · 2018 · British Journal of Urology

OBJECTIVES: To use the Fragility Index to evaluate the robustness of statistically significant findings from urological randomised controlled trials (RCTs). MATERIALS AND METHODS: The 'Fragility Index' is defined as the minimum number of…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Wisdom of crowds and collective decision-making in a survival situation with complex information integration

Daisuke Hamada, Masataka Nakayama, Jun Saiki · 2020 · Cognitive Research Principles and Implications

BACKGROUND: The wisdom of crowds and collective decision-making are important tools for integrating information between individuals, which can exceed the capacity of individual judgments. They are based on different forms of information integration. The wisdom of crowds refers to the aggregation of many independent judgments without deliberation and consensus, while collective decision-making is aggregation with deliberation and consensus. Recent research has shown that collective decision-making outperforms the wisdom of crowds. Additionally, many studies have shown that metacognitive knowled

View details →
Replication FailureOpen accessDecision Sciences

Questionable research practices may have little effect on replicability

Rolf Ulrich, Jeff Miller · 2020 · eLife

This article examines why many studies fail to replicate statistically significant published results. We address this issue within a general statistical framework that also allows us to include various questionable research practices (QRPs) that are thought to reduce replicability. The analyses indicate that the base rate of true effects is the major factor that determines the replication rate of scientific results. Specifically, for purely statistical reasons, replicability is low in research domains where true effects are rare (e.g., search for effective drugs in pharmacology). This point is

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

The intriguing evolution of effect sizes in biomedical research over time: smaller but more often statistically significant

Paul Monsarrat, Jean‐Noël Vergnes · 2017 · GigaScience

Background: In medicine, effect sizes (ESs) allow the effects of independent variables (including risk/protective factors or treatment interventions) on dependent variables (e.g., health outcomes) to be quantified. Given that many public health decisions and health care policies are based on ES estimates, it is important to assess how ESs are used in the biomedical literature and to investigate potential trends in their reporting over time. Results: Through a big data approach, the text mining process automatically extracted 814 120 ESs from 13 322 754 PubMed abstracts. Eligible ESs were risk

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Predicting Stock Prices Using Machine Learning Methods and Deep Learning Algorithms: The Sample of the Istanbul Stock Exchange

Uğur Demirel, Handan Çam, Ramazan Ünlü · 2020 · GAZI UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE

Stock market prediction in financial and commodity markets is a major challenge for speculators, investors, and companies but also profitable with an accurate prediction. Thus, obtaining accurate prediction results becomes extremely…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

The Null Result Penalty

Felix Chopra, Ingar Haaland, Christopher Roth et al. · 2023 · The Economic Journal

Abstract We examine how the evaluation of research studies in economics depends on whether a study yielded a null result. Studies with null results are perceived to be less publishable, of lower quality, less important and less precisely…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Meta-analyzing the multiverse: A peek under the hood of selective reporting.

Anton Olsson-Collentine, Robbie C. M. van Aert, Marjan Bakker et al. · 2023 · Psychological Methods

-hacking) from this "multiverse" of outcomes can inflate effect size estimates and false positive rates. We studied the effects of researcher degrees of freedom and selective reporting using empirical data from extensive multistudy…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

The influence of mortality and socioeconomic status on risk and delayed rewards: a replication with British participants

Gillian Pepper, Deirdre Corby, Rachel Bamber et al. · 2017 · PeerJ

Here, we report three attempts to replicate a finding from an influential psychological study (Griskevicius et al., 2011b). The original study found interactions between childhood SES and experimental mortality-priming condition in predicting risk acceptance and delay discounting outcomes. The original study used US student samples. We used British university students (replication 1) and British online samples (replications 2 and 3) with a modified version of the original priming material, which was tailored to make it more credible to a British audience. We did not replicate the interaction b

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

A randomized trial of an editorial intervention to reduce spin in the abstract’s conclusion of manuscripts showed no significant effect

Mona Ghannad, Bada Yang, Mariska Leeflang et al. · 2020 · Journal of Clinical Epidemiology

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the effect of an intervention compared to the usual peer-review process on reducing spin in the abstract's conclusion of biomedical study reports. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: We conducted a two-arm, parallel-group RCT in a sample of primary research manuscripts submitted to BMJ Open. The authors received short instructions alongside the peer reviewers' comments in the intervention group. We assessed the presence of spin (primary outcome), types of spin, and wording change in the revised abstract's conclusion. Outcome assessors were blinded to the intervention assignment. R

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Magical thinking in predictions of negative events: Evidence for tempting fate but not for a protection effect

J. van Wolferen, Yoel Inbar, Marcel Zeelenberg · 2013 · Judgment and Decision Making

Abstract In this paper we test two hypotheses regarding magical thinking about the perceived likelihood of future events. The first is that people believe that those who “tempt fate” by failing to take necessary precautions are more likely to suffer negative outcomes. The second is the “protection effect”, where reminding people of precautions they have taken leads them to see related risks as less likely. To this end, we describe the results from three attempted direct replications of a protection effect experiment reported in Tykocinski (2008) and two replications of a tempting fate experime

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

The suspension of morality in organisations: Conceptualising organisational moral disengagement and testing its role in relation to unethical behaviours and silence

Roberta Fida, Irene Skovgaard‐Smith, Claudio Barbaranelli et al. · 2024 · Human Relations

While considerable attention has been devoted to understanding how individual characteristics influence unethical actions, far less research has examined the role of social and organisational processes. We introduce the concept of organisational moral disengagement (OrgMD), drawing on Bandura’s moral agency theory, to explain how unethicality may be fostered in organisations. OrgMD is a multilevel construct, capturing perceptions of the mechanisms through which morality can be suspended in an organisation allowing unethical practices to flourish. Using four empirical studies, we validated OrgM

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Artificial intelligence, data elements, digital economy, and corporate innovation performance

Yuan Ma, Wenchao Zhang, Chengxiang Ma et al. · 2025 · International Review of Economics & Finance

In an era defined by digital transformation, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a critical driver of corporate competitiveness, yet the mechanisms through which it enhances innovation remain a key area of inquiry. This study…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Influence of Strategic Planning to Firm Performance in Agricultural Research Based Institutions of Kenya

Yusuf Wanjala Musi, Elegwa Mukulu, Margaret Oloko · 2018 · Journal of Management and Sustainability

Strategic planning is a very crucial phenomenon in all organisations. It is the tool that determines the destiny of the firm. The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of financial resource strategic planning on firm performance, to determine influence of human capital strategic planning on firm performance, to analyze the influence of material resource strategic planning on firm performance and to determine influence of information resource strategic planning on firm performance in agriculture research based institutions of Kenya. Although there had been previous internatio

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportDecision Sciences

Statistically Significant! But Is Trust of Practical Significance?

Dapeng Liu, Heinz Roland Weistroffer · 2020 · Journal of Computer Information Systems

Trust, such as trust in a technology or believing that a technology has trustworthy utility, manifests its importance by affecting user behaviors toward information systems (IS). There is no dearth of evidence showing that the effect of…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

No relationship between researcher impact and replication effect: an analysis of five studies with 100 replications

John Protzko, Jonathan W. Schooler · 2020 · PeerJ

What explanation is there when teams of researchers are unable to successfully replicate already established ‘canonical’ findings? One suggestion that has been put forward, but left largely untested, is that those researchers who fail to replicate prior studies are of low ‘expertise and diligence’ and lack the skill necessary to successfully replicate the conditions of the original experiment. Here we examine the replication success of 100 scientists of differing ‘expertise and diligence’ who attempted to replicate five different studies. Using a bibliometric tool ( h -index) as our indicator

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Enhancing the Ethical Culture of Organizations: A Longitudinal Study Using a Comprehensive Ethics Training

Pablo Ruiz‐Palomino, Juliana Toro‐Arias, María del Pilar Rodríguez‐Córdoba et al. · 2025 · Business Ethics the Environment & Responsibility

ABSTRACT A supportive ethical culture (EC) can encourage moral behavior among employees and help them avoid wrongdoing. One option for fostering EC is ethics training; its longer‐term effectiveness, however, has rarely been examined,…

View details →