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humrel-theory-development

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Use when building the theoretical engine for a Human Relations (HR) manuscript — mechanisms grounded in social theory, process vs. variance logic, constructs, and boundary conditions. Builds the argument; it does not choose methods or run analysis.

Human-Relations-Skills/skills/humrel-theory-development/SKILL.md

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# Theory Development (humrel-theory-development)

## When to trigger

- You have a work-and-society puzzle (from `humrel-topic-selection`) but no theoretical machinery to explain it
- Your "theory" is a box-and-arrow diagram with labelled constructs but no *social mechanism*
- A reviewer says the theory is "thin," "post hoc," "atheoretical," or "a relabelling of the finding"
- You borrowed a fashionable construct (resilience, agility, the algorithmic) as a veneer over an under-theorized result

## The HR standard: a substantive theoretical contribution drawing on social theory

HR's gatekeeping criterion is **"a unique and substantive theoretical contribution"** to understanding work and organizations as social phenomena. Unlike a hypothesis-confirmation register, HR rewards theory that *engages social theory* — power, identity, institutions, practice, sensemaking, emotion, discourse, the labour process — and uses it to illuminate the relational dynamics of work. The deliverable is a change in how readers across organization studies, sociology, and psychology *understand* something, not a coefficient or a managerial recommendation.

## Mechanism first, grounded in a social process
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