Theory Development (mgsci-theory-development)

When to trigger

• You have an intuition but no model or no mechanism
• Hypotheses are descriptive ("X relates to Y") with no stated mechanism
• An analytical model has results but unclear/unstated assumptions
• A Department Editor or reviewer asked "what is the theory here?" or "why is this the right model?"

Because Management Science is bimethodological, "theory development" means one of two disciplined things depending on your Department lane.

Lane A — Analytical / formal model

For Optimization and Decision Analytics, Stochastic Models and Simulation, Operations Management, Finance (theory), Business Strategy (theory), and economic-theory submissions: