Theory Development (etp-theory-development)

When to trigger

• Your "hypotheses" are descriptive ("X relates to Y in startups") with no entrepreneurial mechanism
• A reviewer or editor says the theory "could be about any organization, not entrepreneurship"
• You are choosing among the entrepreneurship theory engines (opportunity, effectuation, bricolage, identity) and don't yet have a mechanism
• You are deciding between deductive hypotheses, an inductive grounded model, and a conceptual reconciliation
• The "implications for practice" section is empty or generic

ETP's theory bar

ETP wants a genuine contribution to entrepreneurship theory — a new construct, a new mechanism, a boundary condition that changes what we predict, or a reconciliation of competing accounts — paired with a defensible implication for practice. The dual mandate (theory and practice, USASBE heritage) is structural, not cosmetic: an elegant model with no practitioner payoff and a useful tip with no theory both fall short. The mechanism must be about the entrepreneurial phenomenon itself — opportunity, judgment under Knightian uncertainty, resource assembly under constraint, the liability of newness, founder identity — not a generic organizational process relabeled.

Pick the theory engine (and use it deliberately)

State the mechanism as a causal/process chain with a why, scope conditions, and the entrepreneurial actor or activity at its center. If you integrate two engines (e.g., effectuation × identity), justify the integration — do not staple constructs together.

Choose and execute a theorizing mode

• Hypothetico-deductive: derive falsifiable hypotheses from the mechanism; moderators/mediators must reflect entrepreneurial context (uncertainty, novelty, resource scarcity, founder/team attributes), not generic firm covariates.
• Inductive / grounded process theory: build an internally coherent process model (Gioia data structure, process diagram); ETP publishes strong qualitative theory, but the output must be a model, not a rich description.
• Conceptual / reconciliation: introduce a new construct or reconcile competing accounts (e.g., discovery vs. creation); a literature review is not a theory paper.

Make the practice contribution a real contribution

The "implications for practice" section should follow from the mechanism: if effectuation logic drives the result, the implication is about how founders/investors/educators should treat predictive planning — specific, not "managers should pay attention." A throwaway practice paragraph signals to ETP reviewers that the dual mandate was not taken seriously.

Checklist

• [ ] The mechanism is specific to the entrepreneurial phenomenon (breaks under the established-firm substitution)
• [ ] A named theory engine drives the argument; any integration is justified
• [ ] Theorizing mode chosen (deductive / inductive process / conceptual) and executed consistently
• [ ] Scope and boundary conditions of the theory are stated
• [ ] Moderators/mediators reflect entrepreneurial context, not generic covariates
• [ ] A tension or orthodoxy is challenged, not merely confirmed
• [ ] The practice implication follows from the mechanism and is actionable

Anti-patterns

• Generic-org theory in a startup costume — the mechanism reads identically for an incumbent
• Hypothesis salad — many predictions, no unifying entrepreneurial mechanism
• Construct import without a boundary — a psychology/sociology construct dropped in with no scope for the venture setting
• Pretend deduction (HARKing) — hypotheses reverse-engineered from results
• Practice as ornament — a generic "implications for managers" paragraph the mechanism does not generate
• Description masquerading as process theory — rich qual data with no model

Worked vignette (illustrative)

A draft argues that "founder resilience improves venture performance." This is generic and untestable as theory. Rebuild it through an engine. Choosing entrepreneurial identity: resilience matters because, under the chronic setbacks of new-venture creation, a founder whose identity is centrally entrepreneurial reframes failure as role-consistent learning rather than personal defeat, sustaining effort — the mechanism is identity-driven persistence, not a trait. The boundary condition: this advantage is strongest early, when the venture's survival depends on the founder's effort, and weakens as the firm professionalizes and effort decentralizes. The substitution check passes — an established firm's CEO does not face identity-threatening, existential setbacks at the same frequency, so the mechanism is entrepreneurial. The practice implication follows from the mechanism: accelerators and investors coaching founders should strengthen entrepreneurial identity centrality (not generic "grit training"), and the value of doing so declines as the venture matures.

Output format

【Journal】Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice
【Engine】opportunity / effectuation / bricolage / cognition-identity / SEW / institutional (+ integration)
【Mechanism (one chain)】the entrepreneurial why ...
【Mode】deductive H1..Hk | inductive process model | conceptual reconciliation
【Boundary conditions】...
【Tension challenged】...
【Practice implication】what follows for founders/investors/educators
【Substitution check】breaks for established firms because ...
【Next skill】etp-literature-positioning