Theoretical Lens & Theorizing (aos-theory-development)

When to trigger

• Field material is rich but the paper currently "describes what happened at Site X"
• A theory is cited in the front end yet never reappears in the findings
• An experiment predicts an effect without specifying the psychological process behind it
• A reviewer writes "the theoretical framing is underdeveloped" or "the theory does no work"

AOS is theory-first

At AOS the theory is not a motivation ritual — it is the product. Empirics earn publication by extending, complicating, or overturning a way of understanding accounting's social operation. Before drafting anything else, answer: which conversation about how accounting works in organizations and society will this paper change, and through which conceptual apparatus?

The working traditions of the AOS canon

Choose one tradition and inhabit it; AOS referees can tell a user of a theory from a citer of one.

• Institutional theory. Accounting as a carrier of legitimacy, myth, and isomorphic pressure; loose coupling between formal systems and practice. Entry point: Covaleski & Dirsmith (1986) on budgeting as power and politics. Theorize which institutional logics collide and what the accounting does in the collision.
• Governmentality (Foucault). Accounting as a technology that renders people and domains calculable and governable — Miller & O'Leary's (1987) "governable person." Theorize the programmes (ideals) and technologies (calculative instruments) and their interplay.
• Bourdieu. Fields, capital, habitus: accounting as a stake and weapon in struggles over position — used in AOS work on the profession, elites, and expertise. Theorize what forms of capital accounting converts and consecrates.
• Actor-network theory. Accounting numbers as inscriptions that act at a distance (Robson 1992); expertise fabricated through networks (Chua 1995). Theorize how the inscription travels and enrolls allies, not just that it exists.
• Structuration / practice theory. Accounting as both medium and outcome of everyday organizational routines — Roberts & Scapens (1985) on accountability systems; Ahrens & Chapman on practice. Theorize the recursive loop between system and situated use.
• Psychological process theory (experiments). Motivated reasoning, mental models, accountability pressure, affect. Build the Libby-style predictive chain: conceptual cause → operational manipulation → process evidence → operational measure. The process claim, not the main effect, is the theory.

Make the lens generate, not decorate

• Derive from the tradition what you expect to observe and what would surprise you — surprise is where theorizing starts.
• For interpretive work, plan the abductive loop: theory guides fieldwork, anomalies push back on theory, iterate until the conceptual claim stabilizes (the discipline Ahrens & Chapman 2006 call positioning data to contribute to theory).
• For experiments, write the process prediction (mediator, moderator, boundary condition) before the design, so the manipulation isolates the theorized construct.
• Name the paper's conceptual innovation in one sentence: a new concept, a mechanism, a boundary condition on an existing account, or a demonstrated failure of a received view.

Discipline checks by tradition

• Interpretive/critical: Can a skeptic trace each conceptual claim to specific field or archival evidence? Does the theory section set up exactly the concepts the findings use — no orphan concepts, no unannounced ones?
• Experimental: Does theory fix the direction and the condition of the effect? Would a different process theory predict the same pattern (if so, design to discriminate)?
• Historical: Is the account genealogical (how the present became possible) rather than a chronicle?

Reading depth test

Before committing to a tradition, you should be able to (a) summarize its two or three primary sources from memory, (b) name one AOS paper that used it well and one that used it thinly, and (c) say what the tradition cannot explain. Failing (c) is the tell of a citer rather than a user.

Checklist

• ] One tradition chosen and named; its key sources actually read, not name-checked
• ] The conceptual innovation is stated in a single sentence
• ] Every concept in the framing reappears, working, in the findings
• ] (Interpretive) abductive loop planned: theory ↔ anomaly ↔ revision
• ] (Experimental) process prediction with mediator/moderator specified pre-design
• ] What-would-surprise-us is written down before data collection

Anti-patterns

• Theory as wallpaper: Bourdieu in the introduction, thick description ever after.
• Lens mixing: governmentality, institutional logics and ANT stapled together because each explains one finding.
• Effects without process (experimental): predicting that X moves Y with no account of why in the mind of the decision-maker.
• Post-hoc lens shopping: choosing whichever theory retroactively "fits" completed fieldwork and presenting it as prospective.

Output format

【Tradition】institutional / governmentality / Bourdieu / ANT / practice / psychological-process
【Conceptual innovation】one sentence ...
【Core concepts】each concept → where it will work in the findings ...
【Expectations & surprises】what the lens predicts; what would count as an anomaly ...
【Process (if experimental)】mediator / moderator / boundary condition ...
【Next step】aos-literature-positioning