The purpose of our study was threefold. First, we created a taxonomy that can be used to capture many of the facets of an empirical article’s theoretical contribution. That taxonomy includes two dimensions: the extent to which an article builds new theory and the extent to which an article tests existing theory. Second, we used that taxonomy to examine trends in theoretical contributions over time, to see if the contributions offered by contemporary management articles differ from the contributions offered by management articles from decades past. Third, we examined whether an article’s position on our taxonomy is predictive of the article’s impact on the literature, as judged using citation rates.