What Theory is Not

We are grateful to Steve Barley, Max Bazerman, Daniel Brass, Gary Alan Fine, Linda Pike, Robert Kahn, James March, Marshall Meyer, Keith Murnighan, Christine Oliver, and David Owens for their contributions to this essay. This essay was prepared while the first author was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. We appreciate the financial assistance provided by the Hewlett-Packard Corporation and the National Science Foundation (SBR-9022192). This essay describes differences between papers that contain some theory rather than no theory. The~re is little agreement about what constitutes strong versus weak theory in the social sciences, but there is more consensus that references, data, variables, diagrams, and hypotheses are not theory. Despite this consensus, however, authors routinely use these five elements in lieu of theory. We explain how each of these five elements can be confused with theory and how to avoid such confusion. By making this consensus explicit, we hope to help authors avoid some of the most common and easily averted problems that lead readers to view papers as having inadequate theory. We then discuss how journals might facilitate the publication of stronger theory. We suggest that if the field is serious about producing stronger theory, journals need to reconsider their empirical requirements. We argue that journals ought to be more receptive to papers that test part rather than all of a theory and use illustrative rather than definitive data.

[1]  R. F. Hull,et al.  Zen in the Art of Archery , 1948 .

[2]  L. Festinger.  A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance , 1957 .

[3]  T. Kuhn,et al.  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , 1963 .

[4]  D. Campbell.  Variation and Selective retention in Socio-Cultural Evolution , 1965 .

[5]  James D. Thompson.  Organizations in Action , 1967 .

[6]  Ma. de la Natividad Jiménez Salas,et al.  The Conduct of Inquiry , 1967 .

[7]  A. Strauss,et al.  The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research aldine de gruyter , 1968 .

[8]  K. Weick.  The social psychology of organizing , 1969 .

[9]  Allen C. Bluedorn,et al.  Men and Women of the Corporation , 1978 .

[10]  Robert N. Stern,et al.  The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective. , 1979 .

[11]  P. Wright.  The Social Psychology of Organizations, (2nd Ed): Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn New York: Wiley, 1978, 838 pp. , 1979 .

[12]  B. Loasby.  The External Control of Organizations. A Resource Dependence Perspective , 1979 .

[13]  Henry Mintzberg.  An Emerging Strategy of "Direct" Research , 1979 .

[14]  L. Ross,et al.  Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. , 1981 .

[15]  R. I. Sutton,et al.  The relationship between union effectiveness and the quality of members' worklife , 1982 .

[16]  D. L. Simms,et al.  Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies , 1986 .

[17]  P. J. Runkel,et al.  A guide to usage for writers and students in the social sciences , 1984 .

[18]  Barry M. Staw,et al.  Behavior in escalation situations: Antecedents, prototypes, and solutions. , 1987 .

[19]  J. M. Larocco,et al.  Understanding, prediction, and control as moderators of the relationships between perceived stress, satisfaction, and psychological well-being. , 1987, The Journal of applied psychology.

[20]  D. Whetten.  What Constitutes a Theoretical Contribution , 1989 .

[21]  K. Weick.  Theory Construction as Disciplined Imagination , 1989 .

[22]  Robert I. Sutton,et al.  Maintaining Norms about Expressed Emotions: The Case of Bill Collectors , 1991 .

[23]  Karl E. Weick,et al.  Agenda Setting in Organizational Behavior , 1992 .

[24]  J. Barker.  Tightening the Iron Cage: Concertive Control in Self-Managing Teams , 1993 .

[25]  K. Weick.  The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organizations: The Mann Gulch Disaster , 1993 .

[26]  J. Pfeffer.  Barriers to the Advance of Organizational Science: Paradigm Development as a Dependent Variable , 1993 .