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