Getting the Reader to "I Get It!": Clarification, Differentiation and Illustration‪.‬

INTRODUCTION Seen in a purely instrumental light, the proposition quoted above provides an incentive for journal editors to seek out conceptual work and for authors to write it. This essay stems from the recognition that the way we train scholars and editors in management domains is at often odds with the production of conceptual work. Our training tends to favor empirical research that seeks to verify existing theory. As a result it is easier for authors to write, reviewers to comment on and editors to publish articles that use established empirical methods to test minor variants of established theory, even though such articles often have minimal impact. If the goal of research is to have impact rather than to simply be published, then all three kinds of actors have to adopt a different way of thinking as they write and review articles whose primary contribution is new theoretical language. The goal of this essay is to expand on the process of developing theory during the review process for conceptual articles. There are things that authors and reviewers of conceptual articles should think about that differ from what we think about when we write or review empirical research.