The DOI matches its Crossref record.
The Field of Management's Devotion to Theory: Too Much of a Good Thing?
Abstract
The article examines whether the discipline of management science has placed an undue emphasis on the development of theory at the expense of research which observes and reports actual facts. It is well known that the leading scholarly periodicals in the field require articles to contribute to management science theory to be accepted for publication. This unnecessarily limits research, since the collection of previously unknown facts by itself will contribute to the development of theory. The bad effect forced theoretical discussion has on the comprehensibility and readability of academic writing is noted. Articles in scholarly periodicals in related fields such as marketing research and finance which introduce previously unknown facts are presented as a comparison. There is said to be an inherent contradiction in the emphasis of pure theory in a field devoted to the study of real world decision making.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cited by
A Critical Review and Best‐Practice Recommendations for Control Variable Usage
Bernerth, J. B., & Aguinis, H. (2016) · Personnel Psychology · doi:10.1111/peps.12103 · Cited by 1,731
Dynamic Managerial Capabilities: Review and Assessment of Managerial Impact on Strategic Change
Helfat, C. E., & Martin, J. A. (2015) · Journal of Management · doi:10.1177/0149206314561301 · Cited by 1,045
Gabriel, A. S., Podsakoff, N. P., Beal, D. J., Scott, B. A., Sonnentag, S., Trougakos, J. P., & Butts, M. M. (2019) · Organizational Research Methods · doi:10.1177/1094428118802626 · Cited by 755
Theories in sustainable supply chain management: A structured literature review
Touboulic, A., & Walker, H. (2015) · International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management · doi:10.1108/ijpdlm-05-2013-0106 · Cited by 688
Short, J. C., Broberg, J. C., Cogliser, C. C., & Brigham, K. H. (2010) · Organizational Research Methods · doi:10.1177/1094428109335949 · Cited by 644
The Decline of Conceptual Articles and Implications for Knowledge Development
Yadav, M. S. (2010) · Journal of Marketing · doi:10.1509/jmkg.74.1.1 · Cited by 578
Evaluating and Developing Theories in the Information Systems Discipline
Monash University, & Weber, R. (2012) · Journal of the Association for Information Systems · doi:10.17705/1jais.00284 · Cited by 344
An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Pound of Cure: Improving Research Quality Before Data Collection
Aguinis, H., & Vandenberg, R. J. (2014) · Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior · doi:10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091231 · Cited by 304
Looking Toward the Future of IT–Business Strategic Alignment Through the Past: A Meta-Analysis1
Gerow, J. E., Grover, V., Thatcher, J., & Roth, P. L. (2014) · MIS Quarterly · doi:10.25300/misq/2014/38.4.10 · Cited by 277
The Chrysalis Effect: How Ugly Initial Results Metamorphosize Into Beautiful Articles
O’Boyle, E. H., Banks, G. C., & Gonzalez-Mulé, E. (2017) · Journal of Management · doi:10.1177/0149206314527133 · Cited by 246
Keding, C. (2021) · Management Review Quarterly · doi:10.1007/s11301-020-00181-x · Cited by 231
AMD—Clarifying What We Are about and Where We Are Going
Bamberger, P. A. (2018) · Academy of Management Discoveries · doi:10.5465/amd.2018.0003 · Cited by 184
Toward a theory of evidence based decision making
Baba, V. V., & HakemZadeh, F. (2012) · Management Decision · doi:10.1108/00251741211227546 · Cited by 167
Questions About Questionable Research Practices in the Field of Management: A Guest Commentary
Banks, G. C., O’Boyle, E. H., Pollack, J. M., White, C. D., Batchelor, J. H., Whelpley, C. E., Abston, K. A., Bennett, A. A., & Adkins, C. L. (2016) · Journal of Management · doi:10.1177/0149206315619011 · Cited by 163
What makes articles highly cited?
Antonakis, J., Bastardoz, N., Liu, Y., & Schriesheim, C. A. (2014) · The Leadership Quarterly · doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2013.10.014 · Cited by 148
Mäntymäki, M., Islam, A. K. M. N., & Benbasat, I. (2020) · Information Systems Journal · doi:10.1111/isj.12262 · Cited by 171
“As pointed out by Corley and Gioia (2011) and Hambrick (2007), focusing on a relevant practical problem not only strengthens the practical utility of the study but is a good starting point for theory development and making a theoretical contribution.”
BackgroundEditors’ Comments: There Is Nothing So Theoretical As Good Practice—A Call for Phenomenal Theory
Ployhart, R. E., & Bartunek, J. M. (2019) · Academy of Management Review · doi:10.5465/amr.2019.0087 · Cited by 114
Presenting Post Hoc Hypotheses as A Priori: Ethical and Theoretical Issues
Leung, K. (2011) · Management and Organization Review · doi:10.1111/j.1740-8784.2011.00222.x · Cited by 61
A Systems-Based Approach to Fostering Robust Science in Industrial-Organizational Psychology
Grand, J. A., Rogelberg, S. G., Allen, T. D., Landis, R. S., Reynolds, D. H., Scott, J. C., Tonidandel, S., & Truxillo, D. M. (2018) · Industrial and Organizational Psychology · doi:10.1017/iop.2017.55 · Cited by 52
Frank, D., & Otterbring, T. (2024) · British Journal of Management · doi:10.1111/1467-8551.12780 · Cited by 49
Construct Mixology: Forming New Management Constructs by Combining Old Ones
Newman, D. A., Harrison, D. A., Carpenter, N. C., & Rariden, S. M. (2016) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/19416520.2016.1161965 · Cited by 60
Managing technology-enabled innovation in a professional services firm: a cooperative case study
Dodgson, M., Ash, S., Andrews, J., & Phillips, N. (2022) · Academy of Management Discoveries · doi:10.5465/amd.2020.0217 · Cited by 18
Strang, D., & Siler, K. (2017) · Social Studies of Science · doi:10.1177/0306312717694512 · Cited by 15
Metadata
- Authors
- Hambrick, D. C.
- Venue
- Academy of Management Journal
- Publisher
- Academy of Management
- Published
- 2007-12
- Volume
- 50
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1346-1352
- ISSN
- 0001-4273 (ISSN-L)
- 1948-0989
- OpenAlex
- W2131598490
- Cited by
- 877
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 40.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
