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Concepts and theories are basic products of social 
science research. When you read a research article  

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the first time or hear a theory the first time 
it might be difficult to understand what that  

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article or what that theory is about. Unless you 
understand what the concepts that the article or  

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theory addresses are. For this reason it 
is very important to be able to identify  

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the key concepts in an article and also find the 
definitions for those concepts. Sometimes the  

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definition is provided by article, sometimes it 
is assumed to be common knowledge. Sometimes you  

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need to go elsewhere to look for a definition. 
Without understanding, how the concepts are  

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defined in an article, it is very difficult to 
understand what the article actually is about. 

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Let's start by looking at what is theory. 
Sometimes theory is thought of being opposite  

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of practice but in social sciences and in science 
more generally, theory has more specific meaning.  

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So theory is a set of connected statements 
about causal relationships between concepts. 

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And importantly theory does not 
simply state that x causes y,  

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but the theory also explains the causal process.  

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How, when and why x causes y. For example we 
could have a proposition, which is a basic causal  

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claim within a theory that innovativeness 
causes companies to be more successful.

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Then to have a theory to support that proposition 
we would have to explain the different  

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causal pathways or the different mechanisms 
through which innovativeness causes companies  

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to be more successful. For example we could say 
that innovativeness allows companies to come up  

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with better products, better products allow them 
to capture more marketshare and that allows them  

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to grow and be more profitable. We could also 
say that innovativeness allows them to have  

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improved processes, less crap, more efficiency, 
therefore lower costs and more profitability. 

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So that kind of how, when and why explanation is 
required for a theory along with the proposition  

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which states that they are the key causal 
relationship that the theory is about.  

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Quite often theories contain multiple 
propositions so we might have for example a theory  

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that early international expansion leads to growth 
but it also leads to a higher risk of failure. 

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Now, let's take a look at concepts. And 
our example article is by Harry Sapienza  

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and co-authors from 2006 in Academic 
Management Review, which is a journal  

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that publishes only non-empirical articles.
So a non-empirical article is an article  

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that advances some kind of theoretical 
argument or presents some kind of theory but  

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does not present any evidence back in that theory.
This kind of articles present a new idea but don't  

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necessarily test the idea. So let's take a look at 
the theory of this paper and how we can make sense  

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of this paper. Of course you can start reading 
the paper from the first line and proceed like you  

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would read a novel from the beginning to the end 
and hope that you will understand it as you go.  

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But that's not the most efficient way of trying 
to understand, or more effective or most efficient  

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and effective way of understanding an article. 
It's better to first skim through the article  

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to get an idea of what the article is about. 
And then try to identify the key concepts. 

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What you're basically looking for when you 
evaluate an article that presents a theory, is  

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something like this. So this article presents 
a graphical summary of all the propositions.  

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So each of these propositions, there 
are eight in total, is a causal claim  

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that the article also explains. Once you start 
to read an article the first thing that you  

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need to understand or identify is what are the 
key concepts. And then how are they defined. 

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It's pretty obvious that because each of these box 
presents a concept, these boxes at least should be  

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considered the key concepts. Once we have the key 
concepts we need to identify how are the concepts  

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causally related. So each of these arrows presents 
a proposition which corresponds to a causal,  

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which is basically a causal statement.
So the article says that once you decide  

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to go international that actually decreases the 
probability of survival. Then the article contains  

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an explanation of why that is so. But that's not 
the only place where you find these concepts.  

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You need to also look at the concepts within the 
arrows. The arrows present the causal mechanisms.  

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You need to look at the "why", why do these arrows 
exist. What kind of concepts are used to explain  

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the mechanisms that there are in these arrows. 
Then once you have identified all the concepts you  

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need to understand what the concepts are about.
So if we just look at these boxes, six boxes here,  

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probability the firm survival. We understand 
survival means not dying, a growing means getting  

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bigger that's pretty easy to understand.
Age, it's pretty easy to understand,  

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experience, we have an intuitive 
understanding what experience means. 

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But what is research fungibility. How 
do we define resource fungibility? 

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What is the meaning of this term?
Also there are the theory part, the part that  

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explains the logic behind these arrows.
Contains concepts such as  

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dynamic capabilities and imprinting.
If we go and ask any person at the university  

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what is dynamic capabilities, what 
is imprinting, what is fungibility. 

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And if that person is not familiar with 
this literature they have probably no idea. 

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But to understand this paper you 
need to understand these terms.  

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How do we know what these terms mean? Quite often, 
once you have identified the key terms you can  

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start looking for definitions in the article.
This is a good article and it presents  

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definitions, for example here is the 
definition of dynamic capabilities. 

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It stated that the dynamic capabilities are 
organizational and strategic routines by  

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which managers alter firms resource base through 
acquiring, shedding, integrating and recombining  

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resources to generate new value-creating 
strategies. And well a dynamic capability  

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is a special kind of capability. So it's worth 
also defining what the capability is and how  

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dynamic capabilities differ from other kinds 
of capabilities. So based on this description  

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we can understand a dynamic capability. Something 
that allows firms to develop new capabilities  

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or reconfigure existing capabilities. So 
the dynamic capabilities basically are the  

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capability of a firm to adapt to its environment 
or create new things. If you want to know more  

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there is citation to Eisenhardt & Martin's 
article from which this definition comes from. 

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Quite often, when an article presents a concept 
and it presents a definition, if that article is  

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not the first one to come up with that concept 
and the definition, they will cite the source  

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or the original source of that concept. So 
dynamic capabilities was not, or capability,  

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was not introduced the term was not introduced 
by Eisenhardt & Martin but this definition that  

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this article by Sapienza applies comes from that 
article. So sometimes we change the definition  

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of a concept because we have realized that there 
are how we use the concept is actually involved  

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or we realize that the existing definition was 
too imprecise. It was easy to misunderstand or  

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something and then we need to redefine it. Just 
that everyone has a shared vocabulary and that we  

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understand what we are talking about.
And both the reader and the author  

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can have the shared meaning for the same concept. 
If you want to know more about capabilities  

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this article points to Nelson and Winter's 
book and then that's a book length  

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treatment of what routines and capabilities 
are for those who are more interested. 

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Of course, if you're just looking at this article 
as a part of a course work or part of a larger  

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review you probably don't want to go to these 
original sources but it's nice to have them  

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available in case you for example want to write 
the dissertation about dynamic capabilities.  

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Here we have a definition of imprinting. It 
comes from Hannan and Stinchcombe's work.  

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The idea of imprinting is that it is 
something, it is a process through,  

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which something that happens early on in 
a life cycle has a lasting consequence.  

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How would you know what imprinting means?
Well you can look for this definition or  

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you can perhaps put the term in 
Google. Maybe you have seen the  

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term imprinting used in different contexts.
Generally, when you see a term used the first  

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time in an article there's a definition for 
it or at least the definition can be found  

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somewhere near the first use of the term.
For example if the introduction states that  

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there is imprinting involved, then the 
definition of imprinting might be in the  

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theory part that follows the introduction that 
explains the imprinting process in more detail.  

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Then we have the definition for 
fungibility. It relates to whether resources  

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can be used for different purposes. And once 
we understand what these concepts are about  

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then it's a lot simpler to understand 
what the actual theory is about.  

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So when you read an article, you need to 
identify the concepts, you need to identify the  

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definitions and then you can understand it. 
What if a concept is not defined? For example  

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this article uses the term resource endowment,
which it does not present the definition for. 

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Well, we need to first consider 
is that the central concept. 

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The answer to this question is no.
We don't need to know what is the exact definition  

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of what resource endowment means.
But if we have no idea what endowment is,  

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we can simply look at the dictionary definition.
So put it in Google and you'll find a definition.  

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An endowment is something that you initially 
have or possess. So resource endowment could be  

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understood as what your initial resources are in a 
company. Of course dictionary and definitions are  

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not always the same as the definitions used in 
social science research. And sometimes the same  

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term is applied with different definitions 
in different fields or different contexts.  

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But if you simply want to understand the 
argument of a paper and the concept is not  

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central to that paper then dictionary definitions 
are good enough for you. You should not shy away  

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from putting things to Google and checking the 
definitions and try to understand it that way. 

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If you understand the detail incorrectly it 
does not really make a difference for your  

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understanding of the main idea of the paper.
So how do you evaluate articles?  

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How do you understand theory and how 
do you understand non-numerical papers? 

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First of all you need to identify the key 
concepts. Quite often the key concepts are  

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presented in boxes and arrows like this. 
So boxes are the concepts, arrows are the  

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propositions that state, the the claimed causal 
relationships. If an article does not present such  

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a graphic or such a figure as this 
one, then I quite often myself  

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draw a figure myself. So an article that 
presents theory quite often has propositions  

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and propositions are in the form x causes y. So I 
will put all the x's in boxes on the y's in boxes  

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and connect the x's and y's using arrows. 
And I'll draw this kind of figure based on  

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what the paper writes and that helps. Then I 
start looking at okay, so what is fungibility.  

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I go through the central concepts. Typically there 
are few, maybe 10, maybe less, maybe a bit more  

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and importantly not all concepts are 
central. For example resource endowment  

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is not something that you need to really 
understand to understand this theory. 

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Then you need to look at the boxes 
and the explanation of the arrows. 

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Once you have the list of 
the different key concepts  

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then you start looking at the definitions.
What those definitions are?  

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And often found in the article 
underline the key definitions.  

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If you can't find it in the article, you 
open the article, you type the concept  

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in the pdf-search. If you still can't 
find the definition then put it in Google.

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Sometimes the concept like "age" is common 
knowledge and it does not need to be defined.  

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Once you have identified the key concepts and 
their definitions, then you read the article.  

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So once you understand what imprinting is, then 
you are in the position to read and understand  

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why imprinting would have an effect on, 
for example a probability of firm growth.