‘Borrowing’ Theory: What Does This Mean and When Does It Make Sense in Management Scholarship?

Abstract

One common approach scholars use in management studies to develop theory is what I will call ‘borrowing’, i.e. bringing ideas from one theoretical domain to address an issue or explain a phenomenon in another domain. An example of this practice would be Burgelman’s (1991) use of evolutionary theory to explain how firms renew organizational competencies. Borrowing ideas from a field like biology for theory development in a social science is not without risks, however, and an interest in these risks is what sparked this Point–Counterpoint. Zahra and Newey (2009) offer an appealing framework for thinking about the opportunities and challenges of borrowing and integrating theories across domains (or ‘intersecting’ as they say). The idea in their paper is that integration of theory may be done in one of three ways (potentially overlapping): (1) application or replication from the parent to the focal domain, where neither is changed very much; (2) theory extension in the focal domain based on ideas in the parent; and (3) transformation of ideas in the parent domain based on what is learned from its extension into the focal domain. They note that the last of these three offers the greatest challenges and risks, but argue passionately that this kind of borrowing creates the greatest impact. Interestingly, these authors conceptualize impact broadly, including influences on field boundaries, researchers’ scholarly development and impact on external constituencies, i.e. practitioners. One of the key contributions of this essay is what the authors call ‘the impact wheel’. Markoczy and Deeds (2009) take on the fundamental premise of Zahra and Newey’s essay. They challenge the very idea of integrating theories across domains – particularly when such efforts stretch across different disciplines. What is interesting about their challenge is that it doesn’t oppose the potential value of theoretical integration that Zahra and Newey describe. Instead, they propose that borrowing theory from disciplines outside of management sacrifices another important goal – developing and maintaining