Theory
These pages collect concise descriptions of established theories that researchers often draw on to frame questions, justify hypotheses, and interpret findings. The IS Theory site provides a browsable catalogue of information-systems theories for positioning and grounding IS research, while the Entrepreneurship Theories glossary offers an A–Z list of entrepreneurial frameworks (spanning psychological, economic, and sociological lenses) with short, accessible definitions.
Before engaging with existing theories or constructing new ones, it is worth pausing to ask a fundamental question: what exactly is a theory? The papers collected here try to answer this question, offering criteria for what makes a theoretical contribution meaningful, cautionary reflections on what theory is not, and frameworks for understanding the different forms theory can take across disciplines.
- Organizational Theories: Some Criteria for Evaluation
- What Theory is Not
- What Theory Is Not, Theorizing Is
- Comments on “What Theory is Not”
- What Constitutes a Theoretical Contribution?
- Building Theory About Theory Building: What Constitutes a Theoretical Contribution?
- What are We Talking About When We Talk About Theory?
- Editor’s Comments: The Craft of Writing Theory Articles–Variety and Similarity in AMR
- A Definition of Theory: Research Guidelines for Different Theory-Building Research Methods in Operations Management
- Theoretically Speaking
- The Ions of Theory Construction
- Levels Issues in Theory Development, Data Collection, and Analysis
- The ‘Theoretical Lens’ Concept: We All Know What it Means, but do We All Know the Same Thing?
- Providing Theoretical Foundations: Developing an Integrated Set of Guidelines for Theory Adaptation
- Conclusion: Theory Construction as Disciplined Reflexivity: Tradeoffs in the 90s
Theory specific to IS research is discussed in these papers:
- The Nature of Theory in Information Systems
- Next-Generation Information Systems Theorizing: A Call to Action
Theory specific to entrepreneurship and organizations is discussed in these papers:
- Contextualizing theory building in entrepreneurship research
- Challenges to Theory Development in Entrepreneurship Research
- Theory Building in the Entrepreneurship Paradigm
- Theorizing About Entrepreneurship
- Trends in Theory Building and Theory Testing: A Five-Decade Study of the Academy of Management Journal
- Why Organization Theory Needs Historical Analyses-and How This Should Be Performed
- Eisenhardt’s Impact on Theory in Case Study Research
- Inductive Top-down Theorizing: A Source of New Theories of Organization
With a working sense of what counts as “theory” (and what does not), the next step is to recognize that theories come in different forms and serve different purposes. In particular, IS and management research often distinguishes between theories that explain outcomes via relationships among variables (variance theorizing) and theories that explain how outcomes emerge over time through sequences, events, and mechanisms (process theorizing). The papers in this section unpack these contrasting theory types, clarify when each is most useful, and offer guidance for selecting them to fit your research question and phenomenon.
- Information Technology and Organizational Change: Causal Structure in Theory and Research
- Theoretical Perspectives in IS Research: From Variance and Process to Conceptual Latitude and Conceptual Fit
- Suggestions for Studying Strategy Process: A Research Note
- Strategies for Theorizing from Process Data
- Process Theory: Background, Opportunity, and Challenges