Transparency of reporting practices in quantitative field studies: The transparency sweet spot for article citations

Intuitively, there would appear to be a direct positive link between the transparency with which research procedures get reported and their appreciation (and citation) within the academic community. It is therefore not surprising that several guidelines exist, which demand the reporting of specific features for ensuring transparency of quantitative field studies. Unfortunately, it is currently far from clear which of these features do get reported, and how this affects the articles’ citations. To rectify this, we review 200 quantitative field studies published in five major journals from the field of management research over a period of 20 years (1997–2016). Our results reveal that there are significant gaps in the transparent reporting of even the most basic features. On the other hand, our results show that copious reporting of transparency is productive only up to a certain degree, after which more transparent articles get cited less, pointing to a ‘transparency sweet spot’ that can be achieved by reporting mindfully.