An important goal of research in micro domains such as organizational behaviour and human resource management is to improve organizational effectiveness. However, studies in micro research rarely examine organizational-level outcomes, focusing instead on individuals and teams. For example, diversity scholars typically examine how being different from other members of a group (e.g., in terms of gender and race) affects an individual, or how diversity in a team influences team dynamics and performance. Understanding the impact of workforce diversity on organizational effectiveness requires that researchers expand theory in this domain to the organizational level and higher. For example, do firms with more female employees or a workforce that is more racially diverse have stronger performance? How do these effects vary across industries and countries?

Widespread need for theory on micro topics at the macro level

In our article, published in the Journal of Management Studies, we describe evidence of a pervasive need for this type of upward expansion of micro theory in many different micro domains, including workforce diversity, turnover, training and development, performance appraisal and management, employee health and well-being and leadership. We found this evidence in the future research directions described in recently published literature reviews related to these micro topics that include research questions in need of attention to make significant theoretical progress. Many of these research questions involve expanding micro theory to the macro level. For example, how does organizations’ investment in training and development or other learning initiatives impact their competitive advantage? What are the strategic implications of employee health and safety programs? How does the quality of performance appraisal programs influence organizations’ performance?

A key challenge to testing micro theory at the macro level

A key challenge to testing theory on micro topics at the macro level is obtaining relevant data with sufficient macro-level variance. For example, studying the impact of gender diversity on firm performance requires data on gender diversity in the workforce and firm performance from many organizations. These data are difficult to collect using the labor-intensive techniques, such as surveys and interviews, that are most common in micro research. These micro approaches are more suited for gathering data from individuals and teams within a single organization or a few organizations, resulting in no or very limited variance at the macro level.

Using macro archival databases to meet the challenge

Macro archival databases offer a highly effective approach for obtaining data to test micro theory expanded to the macro level. These databases contain variables—often collected over time—describing organizations (e.g., workforce diversity, size, location, financial performance), industries (e.g., size, competition, regulation), and characteristics of countries (e.g., societal, economic, legal, and cultural). Although routinely used in strategic management research, these databases have yet to be systematically applied in micro domains. We view this as a lost opportunity, since relative to more traditional micro research techniques, macro archival databases are an easier means of obtaining large samples of data for testing expanding micro theory. Thus, the overall goal of our article is to describe how researchers can use macro archival databases for advancing theory in micro research.

A practical guide to using macro archival databases in micro research

We provide a consolidated, practical resource for researchers who may be unfamiliar with using macro archival databases. First, we summarize examples of unanswered research questions across different micro domains that could be tested using macro archival databases and identify 31 commonly used databases that are likely to be useful for addressing these types of questions. We focus, in particular, on major databases available for free or through academic subscriptions. Our article comes with an online supplement providing detailed information about each database, including the types of variables it contains, and how to access it.

Second, we describe best practices that help researchers maximize advantages of macro archival databases and that are difficult to implement using more traditional micro techniques such as surveys and interviews. These best practices stem from the large sample sizes macro archival databases contain and their wide range of different variables collected over time. For example, collecting data at many different points in time can be challenging using surveys, but this is easily done using macro archival databases. These databases also allow researchers to assess the same construct in different ways, such as measuring firm performance as both return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). These are just some of the exciting best practices made possible by macro archival databases that we discuss in our article.

Finally, we conduct an original empirical study in the micro domain of workplace diversity to demonstrate that macro archival databases are a feasible and useful tool for expanding theory in micro research. Our illustrative study uses a sample with organizations in different industries and countries to show that firms with a higher percent of managers have stronger firm performance (measured as ROA and ROE). We also find stronger performance for firms in industries with a higher percentage of women managers. These findings point to exciting new research directions in the domain of workforce diversity.

Databases containing appropriate macro-level data are an underutilized methodological tool for expanding theory in micro research domains. Our article and online supplement serve as a practical resource and catalyst for micro researchers to use macro archival databases to advance theory in micro research.