Two Types of Theoretical Contributions in Consumer Research : Construct-to-Construct versus Phenomenon-to-Construct Mapping

We distinguish two kinds of theoretical contributions that can be made in empirical research: new claims about links between unobservable constructs and new claims to explain important stylized facts about relations between observable real-world phenomena, termed “phenomenon-to-construct mapping” by MacInnis et al. (2020). In phenomenon-to-construct mapping, the starting point is an interest in real world phenomena as reflected in puzzling links between operational independent and dependent variables. The researcher explains objective links between operational independent and dependent variables by mapping the operational variables to constructs and then to an underlying-construct-to-construct mechanism. The construct-to-construct links may have been well studied in unrelated contexts. The theoretical insight is in appealing to those concepts to explain a practically important empirical puzzle. We rely on the notion of a “nomological net” to specify the different types of belief shift resulting from good theorizing about construct-to-construct links versus phenomenon-to-construct mapping. Because marketing scholars have defined “theory” too narrowly as construct-to-construct links, we have prized work that influences small audiences who are “in the know” about those constructs to the exclusion of audiences who are not steeped in those literatures. Broader audiences care about real-world phenomena and therefore about their conceptual explanation via phenomenon-to-construct theorizing