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A critical pathway for conceptual innovation in the social is the construction of theoretical ideas based on empirical data. Grounded theory has become a leading approach promising the construction of novel theories. Yet grounded theory–based theoretical innovation has been scarce in part because of its commitment to let theories emerge inductively rather than imposing analytic frameworks a priori. We note, along with a long philosophical tradition, that induction does not logically lead to novel theoretical insights. Drawing from the theory of inference, meaning, and action of pragmatist philosopher Charles S. Peirce, we argue that abduction, rather than induction, should be the guiding principle of empirically based theory construction. Abduction refers to a creative inferential process aimed at producing new hypotheses and theories based on surprising research evidence. We propose that abductive analysis arises from actors’ social and intellectual positions but can be further aided by careful methodological data analysis. We outline how formal methodological steps enrich abductive analysis through the processes of revisiting, defamiliarization, and alternative casing.

Research summary: Cross-border acquisitions may raise legitimacy concerns by host-country stakeholders, affecting the acquisition outcomes of foreign firms. We propose that theorization by local regulatory agencies is a key mechanism that links legitimacy concerns with acquisition outcomes. Given that theorization is time consuming and its outcome is uncertain, we argue that state-owned foreign firms experience a lower likelihood of acquisition completion and a longer duration for completing a deal than other foreign firms. Moreover, we introduce a set of firm characteristics (target public status, target R&D alliances, and acquirer acquisition and alliance experiences) that may affect the threshold level of legitimacy, thereby altering the proposed relationships. Our framework and findings provide useful implications for institutional theory on its core concept of legitimacy. Managerial summary: Cross-border acquisitions by state-owned foreign firms may lead to national security concerns and thus debates and discussions among local regulatory agencies. We argue that such institutional processes may reduce the likelihood of acquisition completion and prolong the duration of acquisition completion. Using cross-border acquisitions in the United States, we find that acquisitions by state-owned foreign firms are not less likely to be completed than acquisitions by other foreign firms, but they take more time to be completed. Moreover, state-owned foreign firms are less likely to complete an acquisition when the target firm has more R&D alliances. However, their acquisition experience and alliance experience in the host country increase the likelihood of acquisition completion, whereas their alliance experience alone shortens the acquisition duration.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an evaluation of public sector research in the 1998–2018 period.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses the extant literature of this era to study the theorisation of, and the findings of, public sector research.FindingsThis is a vibrant field of a study in a wide range of study settings and with many interdisciplinary studies. The influence of new public management is pervasive over this period. There are numerous instances of innovations in study settings, in key findings and the approach taken by investigators.Research limitations/implicationsThis is not a comprehensive review of all literature in this period.Practical implicationsThis study also explored the relevance of academic research of this era to policymaking by governments.Originality/valueThis paper offers a distinctive critique of theorisation of public sector accounting research. It reveals the dominant theoretical reference points in use during this period and observes the increasing tendency for theoretical pluralism to investigate complex study settings.

How do researchers studying the cultural aspects of consumption theorize change? We propose four analytical workbench modes of process theorization in combination with nine genres of process-oriented consumer research, each presenting a distinctive combination of assumptions about the nature of change in market and consumption systems and consumers’ role in these processes. Through this framework, we provide consumer researchers with a useful interpretive tool kit for deriving a process-oriented theorization from the unwieldy complexity of longitudinal data.

Most category studies have focused on established categories with discrete boundaries. These studies not only beg the question of how a de novo category arises, but also upon what institutional material actors draw to create a de novo category. We examine the formation and theorization of the de novo category “modern architecture” between 1870 and 1975. Our study shows that the process of new category formation was driven by groups of architects with distinct clientele associated with institutional logics of commerce, state, religion, and family. These architects enacted different artifact codes for a building based on institutional logics associated with their specific mix of clients. “Modern architects” fought over what logics and artifact codes should guide “modern architecture.” Modern functional architects espoused a logic of commerce enacted through a restricted artifact code of new materials in a building, whereas modern organic architects advocated transforming the profession's logic enacted through a flexible artifact code of mixing new and traditional materials in buildings. The conflict became a source of creative tension for modern architects that followed, who integrated aspects of both logics and materials in buildings, expanding the category boundary. Plural logics and category expansion resulted in multiple conflicting exemplars within “modern architecture” and enabled its adaptation to changing social forces and architectural interpretations for over 70 years.

The Business Model Canvas project cleared the path for the development of a new tool type that we refer to as visual inquiry tools. Such tools build on design thinking techniques to allow management practitioners to jointly inquire into specific strategic management problems. As the interest in and the emergence of visual inquiry tools gain momentum, it is important to formalize the design knowledge that future designers can build on to develop such tools. Thus, we propose a design theory for visual inquiry tools based on the design knowledge accumulated within and across three projects: the Business Model Canvas, the Value Proposition Canvas, and the Team Alignment Map. We outline the design principles (among others) that should be followed for developing visual inquiry tools for other strategic management problems. Our study addresses the lack of guidance in the development of visual inquiry tools and the lack of methodological guidance in design science research on how to theorize and formalize knowledge across multiple projects. We provide a methodological process for analyzing multiple-project data by bridging methodological insights from design science research and qualitative methods from the social sciences.

Although institutional theory has become a more dominant perspective in information systems research, studies have only paid scant attention to how field dynamics and organizational processes coevolve during information technology institutionalization. Against this backdrop, we present a new conceptualization based on the “traveling of ideas” metaphor that distinguishes between theorization of ideas about IT usage across an organizational field and translation of such ideas into practical use of IT within particular organizations. Drawing on these distinct analytical views, we posit that IT institutionalization is constituted through recursive intertwining of theorization and translation involving both linguistic and material objects. To illustrate the detailed workings of this conceptualization, we apply it to a longitudinal study of mobile IT institutionalization within Danish home care. We demonstrate how heterogeneous actors within the Danish home care field theorized ideas about mobile IT usage and how these ideas translated into different local arrangements. Further, our account reveals a complex institutionalization process in which mobile IT was first seen as a fashionable recipe for improvement but subsequently became the subject of controversy. The paper adds to the emerging process and discourse literature on IT institutionalization by shedding new light on how IT ideas travel across a field and within individual organizations, how they transform and become legitimized over time, and how they take on different linguistic and material forms across organizational settings.

We explore attention to Clinton's health care reform proposal, ongoing debates, and its political demise to develop theory that explains how events create opportunities for cognitive realignment and transformation in institutional logics. Our case analysis illustrates how a bottom-up process of environmental sensemaking led to the emergence and adoption of a logic of managed care, which provided new organizing principles in the hospitals' organizational field. In addition to theorization, highlighted by prior research, we propose a second mechanism of environmental sensemaking: representation of change through exemplars and environmental features. The interplay between theorization, representation, and ongoing event attention can lead to change in institutional logics over an event's life course. We found that the managed care logic did not emerge in a fully formed fashion, but that actors theorized individual dimensions of the logic consistent with changing representations of hospitals' relationships with other actors in the field. As the event unfolded, the individual dimensions came to be theorized as part of an overall managed care logic. The label \"managed care,\" previously understood as a specific organizational form, took on a new meaning to symbolize the organizing principles for hospitals' relationships with a variety of institutional actors as alternative models not congruent with the changing organizational field were abandoned.

Our ability to predict, explain, or control sociotechnical realities is being increasingly called into question by unprecedented phenomena in surveillance, in markets, and in other social and political domains. The apparatus of research - our current categories, instruments, arguments, and epistemic choices - rely on what is empirically accessible, i.e., on the past. Our research orientation toward the future assumes continuity and the extension of past patterns into a predictable and thus manageable future. In this research, we propose speculative engagement through digital geographies to make visible the processes of technological and cultural reconfiguration that result in unprecedented change. After describing the conception of “the future” in widely used research methods, we describe speculative engagement as a research orientation to disclose new categories, relationships, and values and a commitment to the performative relationships of our current research practices with potential future(s). Digital geographies are internally consistent and coherent worlds that are cognitively plausible but estranging. They are carriers of meaning and culture that underpin a broad class of methods to provide richly experienced “other worlds.” We posit principles for effective digital geographies and provide an illustrative example of a digital human artifact that estranges us from current assumptions. Finally, we argue that our approach enables researchers to engage with the future on its own terms. In this way, researchers, designers, and policy makers can open current practices to new categories, relationships, logics, and values and make visible the unprecedented reconfigurations in which our research is implicated.

Because we work in teams more than ever, we should craft them fostering team members’ motivation, wellbeing, and performance. To that aim, we propose a multi-level model explaining the emergence of team burnout, articulating the interplay between individual and team level mechanisms around ten empirically testable research propositions. Drawing from the JD-R theory, we formulated an emergence model of team burnout by combining team effectiveness and occupational health literatures. Our model explains how cycles of attention, information integration, and information-affect sharing on burnout cues foster the emergence of team burnout. It also explains how team burnout moderates the relationship between team structural variables and team members’ burnout and how team burnout impairs team effectiveness through co-regulatory mechanisms. This model is timely because it addresses the importance of team burnout through a systematic effort connecting individual and team levels in explaining its emergence and the mechanisms through which it impairs team effectiveness.