MBA RESEARCH THEORIES: A Comprehensive Reference Guide

This comprehensive reference guide has been compiled to support MBA students, doctoral candidates, and business researchers in understanding the major theoretical frameworks that underpin business and management scholarship. The guide covers theories across eight domains of business and management research: Strategic Management, Human Resource Management, Marketing, Finance and Accounting, Entrepreneurship, Operations and Supply Chain Management, Information Systems, and Organizational Behavior and General Management.

Each theory is presented using a consistent four-part structure: (1) Introduction and Principal Proponent(s) — providing historical context and identifying the scholars who developed or significantly advanced the theory; (2) Relevance to MBA Research and Practical Situations — describing how the theory is applied in academic studies and managerial practice; (3) Critique of the Theory — summarizing the principal scholarly criticisms of the theory's assumptions, scope, and empirical support; and (4) Appropriateness Despite Challenges — explaining why and how the theory remains valuable in research despite its recognized limitations.

The theories covered in this guide represent the intellectual heritage and living canon of business research. Understanding them deeply — not merely as labels to cite but as living intellectual traditions with assumptions, predictions, critics, and defenders — is the hallmark of a rigorous MBA researcher. This guide is intended as a starting point, a map to the theoretical landscape of business scholarship, and an invitation to engage critically with the ideas that have shaped and continue to shape our understanding of organizations, markets, and management.

Researchers are strongly encouraged to read primary sources for any theory they adopt in their own work. The summaries provided here, while comprehensive, necessarily simplify ideas whose full elaboration spans books, journal articles, and decades of scholarly debate. Theoretical mastery requires engagement with that full tradition, not merely with convenient summaries. Each section of this guide concludes with implications for appropriate use in MBA dissertation research, helping researchers construct the kind of balanced theoretical justification that supervisors and examiners expect.

The guide is organized to reflect the major disciplinary domains in MBA programs, though in practice the boundaries between these domains are fluid. Stakeholder Theory appears in strategic management but is equally relevant to finance, governance, and sustainability research. Social Exchange Theory is classified under HRM but is applied throughout marketing, organizational behavior, and supply chain research. Researchers should scan across chapters to identify the full range of theories relevant to their research problem.