The Theory Fetish: Too Much of a Good Thing?

Recently I was at a brown-bag seminar where a pair of faculty colleagues in our business school's department of management sought advice about a preliminary research idea. We all quickly agreed that their research question was fascinating and would be of great interest to both academics and practicing managers. The only problem: The presenters had no theory.

No theory! Everyone knows that the top scholarly journals in management require without exception that manuscripts make contributions to theory. And so we spent the entire session that day going through our collective mental catalogues of theories. Theories that I'd never heard of were proposed. Things got a little frenzied: "Good God, there must be a theory that we can latch onto," someone said.