Building theory about theory building: What constitutes a theoretical contribution

We distill existing literature on theoretical contribution into two dimensions, origi-nality (incremental or revelatory) and utility (scientific or practical). We argue for a revision in the way scholars approach the utility dimension by calling for a view of theorizing that would enable theories with more “scope ” (both scientific and practical utility). We also argue for an orientation toward “prescience ” as a way of achieving scope and fulfilling our scholarly role of facilitating organizational and societal adaptiveness. Theory is the currency of our scholarly realm, even if there are some misgivings about a possible overemphasis on theory building in organization and management studies (Hambrick, 2007). Every top-tier man-agement journal requires a “theoretical contri-bution ” before a manuscript will be consid-ered for publication. This tenet is perhaps most strongly felt in this journal, the Academy of Management’s premier conceptual journal (and also, not inconsequentially, the most cited journal in organization studies [based o