Retrospective Reports In Organizational Research: A Reexamination Of Recent Evidence

Retrospective reports of important organizational phenomena are commonly used in strategic management and organization theory research. A recent study, however, suggested that these reports tend to be inaccurate and seriously questioned their use. A reexamination of this study suggests the situation is not so dire. The reexamination suggests that retrospective reporting is a viable research methodology if the measure used to generate the reports is adequately reliable and valid. Retrospective reports should neither be rejected nor used indiscriminately.