This Short Methodological Report builds on research about moderation practices by focusing on a marginal effects approach to interpreting how a main effect is informed by the presence of a moderating variable. Following a content analysis of published studies and a survey of management researchers, our findings suggest there is a great deal of confusion about the ways in which to interpret how a main effect may fluctuate owing to a moderating variable. We therefore provide explicit instructions on how to implement and interpret a marginal effects approach that depicts the nature of a main effect in the presence of a moderator. We use different scenarios and examples to illustrate how researchers can employ the marginal effects technique, which provides an indication of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables over different values of the moderator. We argue and demonstrate that the marginal effects approach helps resolve conflicting findings that may arise from using other prevailing techniques to interpret both main effects and moderation.

这份简短的方法论报告以缓和实践的研究为基础，侧重于边际效应方法，以解释缓和变量的存在如何告知主要效应。经过对已发表研究的内容分析和对管理研究人员的调查后，我们的发现表明，对于解释由于适度变量而产生的主要影响如何波动的方式存在很大的困惑。因此，我们提供了有关如何实施和解释边缘效应方法的明确说明，该方法描述了主持人在场时主要效应的性质。我们使用不同的场景和示例来说明研究人员如何采用边际效应技术，它提供了关于主持人不同值的自变量和因变量之间关系的指示。我们争论并证明，边际效应方法有助于解决可能因使用其他流行技术来解释主要效应和适度而产生的矛盾结论。