Theory Development

What Is and Isn’t “Theory”?

In their classic 1995 article, Robert Sutton and Barry Staw specified “what theory is not. ” Included in their list were references, data, variables, diagrams, and hypotheses. At the end of their treatise, the authors briefly addressed what theory is. Their depiction represents a fairly wide consensus within this field, and social science more generally:

Some scholars consider theory as the answering of any question, while others focus on “process” questions pertaining to how something happened. In line with the view expressed by Sutton and Staw, the focus of this entry will be on questions of why, generally characterized as causal explanations. This naturally invites the follow-up question: What is and isn’t an explanation?

One way to address this question is by comparing explanation (Why is it? How does it come to be?) with description (What is it?)—two complementary forms of scholarship used widely in this field. While descriptions focus on “a single thing” (What is it?), explanations necessarily encompass “multiple things”—often signified as an X → Y relationship. This leads to a second distinction. While descriptions of Y might use “arrows” to signify what things Y is related to (X is correlated with Y), it is customary and preferable to use arrows for causal explanations of Y (X is a cause of Y). Indeed, it has been argued that the “strength” of a particular theory depends on how well the causal mechanism implied by an arrow is specified. A third distinction involves the scope of an explanation: Whereas a description can apply to a single case (one manager, group, or organization), it is expected that an explanation applies to multiple cases—that is, it is expected that a theory is “broadly applicable.”

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