Theory Building in Entrepreneurship Research

Participation Prerequisites

None

Course Content

Most doctoral students in family business and entrepeneurship research are confronted with the need to build theory already early in their “PhD career.” No matter, whether the focus of the PhD project is on conceptual development, qualitative case work, or quantitative empirical analyses – almost all international management conferences and journals require a “substantial theoretical contribution” to consider an article as publishable. In this PhD course, we will cover questions such as: What is (or: is not) a theoretical development? How to build theory in a conceptual, case-based, or theory testing (empirical) paper? What are frameworks or “recipes” to come up with sound arguments that (positively) pass the reviewers’ desks?

Intended Learning Outcomes and Competencies

Audience and Goal of this Course:

This PhD course is designed for doctoral students interested in carrying out academic research in the family business and entrepreneurship research field. It aims to acquaint them with the process of theorizing and theory building in management research. The course will cover multiple areas/topics of family business and entrepreneurship and is open for any PhDs students in these fields interested in mastering the process of theorizing and theory development from the extant knowledge and empirical data in their Doctoral studies.
By the end of the course the PhD students will have gained skills and knowledge in (a) precisely defining constructs, (b) linking various constructs through causal relationships and processes, (c) deriving new or extending extant theoretical models based on those relationships. While the focus of this course is on theory building based on extant literature (as necessary for conceptual as well as empirical papers), insights from this course will also be applicable to theory building from cases.

Instruction Type

On-campus 

Form of Examination

Evaluation:
• 30% review of theory building in published paper (teamwork)
• 40% presentation own theory building (individual work)
• 30% classroom participation

Literature

Entries with an asterisk denote required readings.

• * Arend, R., Sarooghi, H., & Burkemper, A. (2015). Effectuation as Ineffectual? Applying the 3E Theory-Assessment Framework to a Proposed New Theory of Entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Review, forthcoming.
• * Bacharach, S. (1989). Organizational theories: Some criteria for evaluation, Academy of Management Review, 14: 496-515.
• * Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51: 1173-1182.
• Bergh, D. (1993). Watch the time carefully: The use and misuse of time effects in management research. Journal of Management, 19(3): 683-705.
• Boyd B., Gove S., & Hitt M.A. (2005). Construct measurement in strategic management research: Illusion or reality? Strategic Management Journal, 26: 239-257.
• Colquitt, J. A., & Zapata-Phelan, C. P. (2007). Trends in theory building and theory testing: A five-decade study of the Academy of Management Journal. Academy of Management Journal, 50(6), 1281.
• * Corley, K. & Gioia, D. (2011). Building Theory About Theory Building: What Constitutes a Theoretical Contribution? Academy of Management Review, 36: 12-32.
• * Daspit, J. J., Madison, K., Barnett, T., & Long, R. G. (2018). The emergence of bifurcation bias from unbalanced families: Examining HR practices in the family firm using circumplex theory. Human Resource Management Review, 28(1), 18-32.
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* Duran, P., Kammerlander, N., Van Essen, M., & Zellweger, T. (2016). Doing more with less: Innovation input and output in family firms. Academy of Management Journal, 59(4), 1224-1264.
• * Eisenhardt, K. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4): 532-550.
• * Ghoshal, S. (2005). Bad management theories are destroying good management practices,
Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4(1): 75-91.
• Gioia, D. A., & Pitre, E. (1990). Multiparadigm perspectives on theory building. Academy of Management Review, 15(4): 584-602.
• Handfield, R. B., & Melnyk, S. A. (1998). The scientific theory-building process: a primer using the case of TQM. Journal of Operations Management, 16(4), 321-339.
• Hitt, M., Beamish, P. W., Jackson, S., & Mathieu, J. 2007. Building theoretical and empirical bridges across levels: Multilevel research in management. Academy of Management Journal, 50: 1385-1399.
• * Huff, A. S. (1999). Writing for scholarly publication. Sage.
• * König, A., Kammerlander, N., & Enders, A. (2013). The family innovator's dilemma: How family influence affects the adoption of discontinuous technologies by incumbent firms. Academy of Management Review, 38(3), 418-441.
• Klein, K. J., Cannella, A., & Tosi, H. (1999). Multilevel theory: Challenges and contributions. Academy of Management Review, 24: 243-248.
• * Langley, A. (1999). Strategies for theorizing from process data. Academy of Management Review, 24(4): 691-710.
• Lewis, M & Grimes, A. (1999). Metatriangulation: Building theory from multiple paradigms. Academy of Management Review, 24: 672-690.
• Machamer, P., Darden, L. & Craver, C. L. (2000). Thinking about Mechanisms. Philosophy of Science, 67: 1-25.
• * Nason, R., Mazzelli, A., & Carney, M. (2019). The ties that unbind: Socialization and business-owning family reference point shift. Academy of Management Review, 44(4), 846-870.
• Oswick, C., Fleming, P. & Hanlon, G. (2011). From borrowing to blending: Rethinking the processes of organizational theory building. Academy of Management Review, 36: 318-337.
• Priem, R. L. & Butler, J. E. (2001). Is the Resource-Based "View" a Useful Perspective for Strategic Management Research? Academy of Management Review, 26: 22-40
• Rindova, V. (2008). Publishing theory when you are new to the game. Academy of Management Review, 33: 300-303.
• * Schulze, W. S., & Zellweger, T. M. (2020). Property Rights, Owner-Management, and Value Creation. Academy of Management Review. In press.
• Shah, S. K., & Corley, K. G. (2006). Building Better Theory by Bridging the Quantitative– Qualitative Divide. Journal of Management Studies, 43(8): 1821-1835.
• * Strike, V. M., & Rerup, C. (2016). Mediated sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 59(3), 880-905.
• Suddaby, R., Hardy, C. & Huy, Q, (2011). Where are the new theories of organizations?
Academy of Management Review, 36: 236-246.
• * Sutton, R. I. & Staw, B. (1995). What theory is not. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40: 371-385
• Tsang, E. W. K. (2006). Behavioral assumptions and theory development: The case of transaction cost economics. Strategic Management Journal, 27(11): 999-1011.
• Van de Ven, A. H. (1989). Nothing is quite so practical as a good theory. Academy of management Review, 14(4): 486-489.
• * Whetten, D. A. (1989). “What constitutes a theoretical contribution?,” Academy of Management Review, 14: 490-495.
• Whetten, D., Felin, T & King, B. (2009). The practice of theory borrowing in organizational studies: Current issues and future directions, Journal of Management, 35: 537-563.