Most business research explains the world with a simple formula: if X happens, then Y likely follows. In his award-winning paper, The Problem with Propositions: Theoretical Triangulation to Better Explain Phenomena in Management Research published in the Academy of Management Review in 2025, Cornelissen argues that management scholars have leaned on that one formula for so long that they have stopped noticing what it costs them.
Cornelissen documents how this habit took hold, tracing it back to the reform of business schools in the 1960s, and shows how, in many instances, it quietly generates false positives that then shape whole areas of study.
A three-step model for theoretical triangulation
Theoretical triangulation is Prof. Cornelissen’s solution to this problem. Just as a sailor fixes their position by taking bearings from several landmarks rather than one, he argues that researchers should examine a problem through several different styles of explanation, then keep whichever account survives the comparison. The paper offers a condensed overview of three different 'grammars' to explain phenomena and a triangulation method for finding better explanations.
This solution matters because many fields of social science currently wrestle with results that cannot be reproduced, and because the issues that management research most needs to address – such as climate change, inequality and the effects of AI at work – are far too tangled to be captured by a single “if X, then Y” explanation.
A clear and important contribution to the field
The Academy of Management's Publication Awards recognise authors whose articles “bring forth core ideas that are original, important, and provocative” and that “have a clear and important contribution to the field of management”.
Prof. Cornelissen, who also holds a part-time chair in strategy and organisation at the University of Liverpool Management School, says, “It is wonderful to get this recognition from the Academy of Management Review, the premier theory development journal in our field. It was a nice intellectual challenge to figure out a novel way to address the credibility issue and work out a practical solution that improves whether an explanation holds for a particular management phenomenon, can reliably be acted upon, and may on that basis inform management practice.”
