Meta-analysis is a research approach in which the results from many partially comparable
empirical studies examining relationships between similar variables are systematically
combined and integrated. (For early methodological development, see Thorndike
1933, Glass 1976, Hunter, Schmidt and Jackson 1982; for studies in management see
Farley, Lehmann and Ryan 1981 and 1982, Churchill et. al. 1985 and Assmus, Farley
and Lehmann 1984.) More recent meta-analyses have used analysis of variance (ANOVA)
and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) frameworks (Farley and Lehmann 1986) in situations
similar to those found in the performance literature discussed in this paper,