Figure 1.

Descriptive versus prescriptive theory building. A schematic representation of descriptive versus prescriptive theory building, adapted from Carlile et al. The Cycles of Theory Building in Management Research; 2006. In descriptive models of theory building, an observation is made, attributes categorized, and attempts are made at proving or disproving a correlation in a retrospective fashion. The prescriptive approach starts with a hypothesis that states there may be a causal relationship between an attribute and an outcome of interest. This is prospectively investigated to try to prove or disprove the causal relationship.