Theory Construction Workshop

The purpose of this workshop is to help participants understand the nature of a theory, the theory construction process, and to develop skills in building interesting and impactful new theory. The focus of the workshop is on nuts and bolts of building new theory (and not on philosophy of science).

We will discuss theory as comprised of three core components – construct definitions, propositions and arguments. We will develop three generic argument structures for supporting three types of theoretical propositions (main effects, interaction effects, and non-linear effects). We will identify characteristics of impactful theories, map the process of constructing theories, and provide guidelines for constructing impactful theories.

An important component of the workshop is learning by doing. Participants will engage in the theory construction process to gain deeper insights into the nature of theory construction, the difficulties involved, and ways of addressing the difficulties successfully.