Theory
Without rehashing all the old debates about what theory is (and is not), there are some
strategies I can suggest to authors so they can strengthen the theory section of their papers.
At the beginning of this section, it helps if authors clarify whether they are trying to extend
or fine-tune an existing theory, trying to compare or contrast different theoretical approaches
to a problem, trying to investigate a specific phenomenon through using multiple theoretical
perspectives, trying to investigate an already-documented phenomenon in a newsetting, etc.
In other words, reviewers will differ among themselves about whether they think you’ve
made a contribution to theory, but it’s the kiss of death if reviewers can’t even figure out
what you think the potential theoretical contribution of your manuscript is.
If your theory is relatively complex, try to include a figure. All things being equal, the text
should follow the figure from left to right (or top to bottom). Some authors jump right into
their moderator predictions and then ripple outwards towards antecedents and outcomes
and it is hard to follow the logic flow in this way.
Another strategy that can help here is to label the arrows in the figure with the relevant
hypothesis number. This serves two functions: it helps reviewers follow your theoretical
arguments more carefully and it provides you, as authors, with a safeguard to make sure
you’ve got all your bases covered.
Make sure you use consistent terminology both within the Theory section and between
the Theory and Method section. That is, if you label a term “strategic decision” in one place,
then don’t subtly change it to “strategic allocation” or “strategic direction” in another place.
Consistency in language usage is valued highly by reviewers but is probably not as salient
an attribute to authors as it could be.
It almost invariably helps to put the relevant hypotheses after the paragraphs that justify
them rather than to put a long list of hypotheses at the end of the Theory section.