THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION: TRENDS AN

THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION: TRENDS AND IMPACT

Having described a tool for capturing the theoretical contribution made by empirical articles, we now focus our attention on how that contribution might evolve over time and how it might shape the scholarly impact of an article. Turning first to trends over time, we asked, How have the theoretical contributions offered by AMJ articles changed over the past five decades? Some predictions can be derived from the literatures on scientific paradigms and schools of thought (e.g., Cole, 1983; Glick, Miller, & Cardinal, 2007; Kuhn, 1963; Lodahl & Gordon, 1972; McKinley, Mone, & Moon, 1999; Pfeffer, 1993). Scholars in this area have noted that scientific disciplines vary in their levels of paradigm development, as reflected in the degree of agreement about research questions, theory, and methodology in a given discipline (Lodahl & Gor don, 1972). Disciplines in which consensus exists enjoy a number of potential benefits, including more efficient communication among scholars and decreased barriers to collaboration (Pfeffer, 1993). Both communication and collaboration are critical ingredients for testing a theory, as such efforts require learning about existing theory and framing tests within the larger stream of work on that theory.

Disciplines with consensus on paradigms are also more likely to allow editorial teams to emphasize conceptual and methodological rigor over author characteristics when judging journal submis sions (Pfeffer, 1993). That emphasis on rigor suggests that such disciplines will generate higher expectations regarding the theory present in empir ical articles. Indeed, Cole (1983) suggested that consensus on paradigms results in an increased level of theory testing in a literature, and an in creased rate of obsolescence as new theories re place flawed predecessors. Popper emphasized the importance of such obsolescence in writing: “It is not the accumulation of observations which I have in mind when I speak of the growth of scientific knowledge, but the repeated overthrow of scientific theories and their replacement by better or more satisfactory ones” (1965: 215). DiMaggio (1995) echoed such sentiments in noting that the primary contribution of a particular theory may be serving as a place holder until it inspires a more valid or useful one. In Kuhn’s (1963) terms, shared para digms provide the context for “convergent think ing.” Such thinking is demonstrated when scientists conduct incremental research that tests and extends existing theory.

The arguments described above suggest that levels of theory testing should increase as manage ment research attains strong consensus in its theoretical paradigms. Although scholars acknowledge that management has much more dissensus in par adigms than the hard sciences (Glick et al., 2007; Pfeffer, 1993), partially because management is interdisciplinary in nature (Rousseau, 2007), the critical question for our purposes concerns whether that fragmentation has decreased over the past five decades. Clearly the fact that Miner’s (2003) review of scientific validity included 73 theories repre senting the management domain reveals a certain lack of consensus on paradigms. However, the past few decades have seemed to bring an increased focus on a smaller set of theories in the micro and macro domains, including the theories judged by Miner (2003) to be highest in scientific validity.For example, concepts and models rooted in goal setting theory (Locke, 1968), expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964), job characteristics theory (Hackman& Oldham, 1976), social exchange theory (Blau,1964), and social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) can be found in many different areas of organizational behavior. Similarly, research driven by agency theory (Jensen & Meckling, 1976), resource dependence theory (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978), the resource-based view (Barney, 1991), population ecology (Hannan & Freeman, 1977), and institu- tional theory (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) can be found in many areas of organization theory and strategic management. As research efforts on these theories have progressed, they seem to have created more agreement on the theoretical paradigms that are represented in the pages of top management journals. At the same time, methodological trends, such as the increased use of structural equation modeling (e.g., Henley, Shook, & Peterson, 2006; James, Mulaik, & Brett, 2006), seem to have brought more consistency in the approaches used to test those theories. As a result, our first prediction was that theory-testing levels would exhibit an upward trend over the past five decades, a trend partially symptomatic of increasing agreement about key theories and appropriate methods.

What does that theory testing trend suggest about levels of theory building over time? Kuhn’s (1963) classic term “essential tension” describes how the convergent thinking created by theoretical consensus actually fosters, rather than inhibits, the “diver- gent thinking” needed for path-breaking research. Specifically, Kuhn (1963) argued that scholars need to be well versed in a current way of thinking before they can recognize the gaps in scientific understanding that trigger the building of new theories. Similarly, McKinley et al. (1999) described how scientific schools of thought are established and maintained by a mix of continuity, reflecting theory testing, and novelty, reflecting new constructs, relationships, and research directions. Continuity is needed for scholars to understand how to work within a given school of thought, whereas novelty is needed to attract attention to and interest in the school. Taken together, these arguments suggest that theory building will also rise as the para- digms in the management literature become more mature.

The literatures on scientific paradigms and schools also describe the importance of theory testing and theory building to the scholarly impact of journal articles. McKinley et al. (1999) drew on human information processing arguments to describe when information is more likely to be salient and memorable to scholars. Specifically, they suggested that novel information separates a given article from the multitude of articles competing for a scholar’s attention. That suggestion echoes Davis’s (1971) emphasis on generating theories that are not just “true” but “interesting.” McKinley et al. (1999) further emphasized that an article must also include a bridge to a scholar’s existing knowledge to be included in the “to be read” pile (see also Davis,
1971). Creating that bridge supplies the communication efficiency and decreased barriers to collaboration that can make a given article impactful to a stream of research (Pfeffer, 1993). We therefore expect that the theory building and theory testing associated with a given empirical article will be positively associated with its scholarly impact, as judged by citation rates.

To summarize, in our study we used the taxonomy shown in Figure 1 to examine three specific questions: (1) How has the level of theory building in empirical articles changed over time? (2) How has the level of theory testing in empirical articles changed over time? and (3) What are the implications of those trends for the scholarly impact of empirical articles? As noted at the outset, AMJ is an appropriate outlet for examining such questions because it has long emphasized theoretical contribution. In fact, one could argue that AMJ possesses an “organizational culture” that gives special priority to theoretical concerns. Schein (1985) described an organization’s culture as existing simultaneously at three levels: assumptions (i.e., taken-for-granted beliefs), values (i.e., principles or standards with intrinsic worth), and artifacts (i.e., visible and tangible manifestations of those assumptions and values).

Journals, like organizations, can have cultures that impact the kinds of manuscripts that are submitted to them, how those manuscripts are written and framed, and how editors and reviewers receive and critique them. A secondary focus of our study was therefore to examine how trends in theory building and theory testing within AMJ corresponded to changes in the artifacts that might represent the journal’s culture. The most salient tangible manifestations of AMJ’s values likely include its “Information for Contributors,” which instructs authors on how to prepare journal submissions, and its “From the Editors,” which provides a forum for editors to speak directly to the journal’s readership (Beyer, 1987; Vance, 1967). Given the limitations of our data, we were unable to directly attribute any shift in theory-building or theory -testing levels to changes in these journal artifacts. Still, we present this analysis in a descriptive and historical fashion in an attempt to provide some context for the trends observed in our data.