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Conceptual review papers: revisiting existing research to develop and refine theory

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Abstract

Conceptual review papers can theoretically enrich the field of marketing by reviewing extant knowledge, noting tensions and inconsistencies, identifying important gaps as well as key insights, and proposing agendas for future research. The result of this process is a theoretical contribution that refines, reconceptualizes, or even replaces existing ways of viewing a phenomenon. This paper spells out the primary aims of conceptual reviews and clarifies how they differ from other theory development efforts. It also describes elements essential to a strong conceptual review paper and offers a specific set of best practices that can be used to distinguish a strong conceptual review from a weak one.

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Notes

  1. Palmatier et al. (2018) reference a study of the frequency with which review papers were published in top marketing journals during the 2012–2016 period. Focusing on the top six journals included in the Financial Times ((FT-50) journal list, the study found that “JAMS has become the most common outlet … publishing 31% of all review papers that appeared in the top six marketing journals.”

  2. The bifurcation here between theory development “from scratch” versus through conceptual review is potentially somewhat misleading, since the latter can also result in novel theoretical insights. Furthermore, many conceptual papers make significant theoretical contributions by building on existing theory without themselves being review papers. Nonetheless, conceptual reviews necessarily involve working with extant, published work.

  3. This focus is quite distinct from the approach proposed by Zeithaml et al. (2020). Their emphasis is on “an approach that is ideally suited to the development of theories in marketing: the ‘theories-in-use’ (TIU) approach” (p. 32). They propose it as an alternative inductive methodology (vs. case studies and ethnographies) to developing grounded theory.

  4. These elements are drawn from Hulland & Houston (2020), MacInnis (2011), Palmatier et al. (2018), and Yadav (2010). Houston (2020), MacInnis (2011), Palmatier, Houston & Hulland et al. (2018), and Yadav (2010).

  5. These underlying assumptions are a crucial component in developing strong arguments for theory development (Toulmin 1958).

  6. MacInnis (2011) describes eight critical skills for conceptual thinking that are arrayed across four dimensions: envisioning (identifying vs. revising), explicating (delineating vs. summarizing), relating (differentiating vs. integrating, and debating (advocating vs. refuting). For conceptual review papers, summarizing and revising represent critical skills that need to be harnessed by the author (whereas identifying and delineating are skills more critical to uncovering new ideas). For the other two dimensions (relating and debating), a more balanced use of the associated skills is needed (i.e., both differentiating and integrating are important, and both advocating and refuting are important).

  7. In her paper, Jaakkola (2020) describes four different types of research designs for conceptual reviews: (1) theory synthesis, (2) theory adaptation, (3) typology, and (4) model. In the current paper, elements from all four of these types are discussed.

  8. In doing so, Khamitov et al. discover seven overarching insights that reveal gaps in the interfaces between the three streams. This highlighting of gaps represents stage four in the theory refinement process.

  9. Not all of the gaps in a specific domain are necessarily valuable, however. Just because no one has studied a phenomenon in a particular industry or region, or with a particular method does not mean that a filling of that gap is required (or even valued).

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  1. Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

    John Hulland

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Hulland, J. Conceptual review papers: revisiting existing research to develop and refine theory. AMS Rev 10, 27–35 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13162-020-00168-7

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