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Theory remains underused in social marketing despite many potential benefits that may arise if theory is concretely and consistently applied. In response to ongoing calls for standardised frameworks and methods, this study aims to present a four-step theory application process with the aim of supporting improved theory use across the entire social marketing process.

The role and importance of theory application in behaviour change is outlined alongside an integrative review and critical analysis of theory application in social marketing. To address key challenges impeding rigorous theory use, the theory selection, iterative schematisation, theory testing and explicit reporting of theory use (TITE) four-step theory application process is proposed. Evidence-based guidance, current best practice examples, and a worked example are provided to illustrate how the TITE process may be initially followed.

Low levels and poor quality of theory use suggest social marketing researchers and practitioners need further support in rigorously applying theories across the life of an intervention. The TITE process leverages the known benefits of theory use and capitalises on the reciprocal relationship that may be enacted between theory selection, iterative schematisation, theory testing and explicit reporting of theory use.

The TITE process delivers a standardised framework that aims to stimulate rigorous theory application and explicit reporting of theory use in social marketing. Clear theory application and reporting will permit a more fine-grained understanding of intervention effectiveness to be established by shifting away from a simple dichotomous view of effectiveness (success or failure) to unpacking the “active ingredients” contributing to observed outcomes.

The evidence-based guidance and best practice examples provided for each step of the TITE process will increase the accessibility and usability of theory among practitioners. With time the TITE process will support practitioners by delivering a robust theory base that can be reliably followed to further extend on social marketing’s effectiveness.

This paper draws on interdisciplinary methods and resources to propose a standardised framework – the TITE process – designed to support rigorous theory application and explicit reporting of theory use in social marketing. Refinement, uptake and widespread implementation of the TITE process will improve theory use and support the creation of a shared language, thereby advancing social marketing’s cumulative knowledge base over time.

This paper aims to reveal the interdisciplinarity of information science (IS) from the perspective of the evolution of theory application.

Select eight representative IS journals as data sources, extract the theories mentioned in the full texts of the research papers and then measure annual interdisciplinarity of IS by conducting theory co-occurrence network analysis, diversity measure and evolution analysis.

As a young and vibrant discipline, IS has been continuously absorbing and internalizing external theoretical knowledge and thus formed a high degree of interdisciplinarity. With the continuous application of some kernel theories, the interdisciplinarity of IS appears to be decreasing and gradually converging into a few neighboring disciplines. Influenced by big data and artificial intelligence, the research paradigm of IS is shifting from a theory centered one to a technology centered one.

This study helps to understand the evolution of the interdisciplinarity of IS in the past 21 years. The main limitation is that the data were collected from eight journals indexed by the Social Sciences Citation Index and a small amount of theories might have been omitted.

This study identifies the kernel theories in IS research, measures the interdisciplinarity of IS based on the evolution of the co-occurrence network of theory source disciplines and reveals the paradigm shift being happening in IS.

This paper explores the contextual factors involved in the development and application of paradigmatic theories in general, and the application and development of Agency Theory in the Chinese context in particular.

Referring to four templates for the design of conceptual papers as outlined by Jaakkola (2020), i.e. theory synthesis, theory adaptation, typology and model – we adopt an approach combining theory/literature synthesis and model establishment. Based on a thorough analysis and discussion of the literature on the topics of “context effect “, “interface between theory and context”, “special characteristics of Chinese context” and “invalid application of Agency Theory in a Chinese context”, we use Agency Theory as the lens to discuss the importance of context in applying and developing paradigmatic theory specifically. We start from the contextualization of Agency Theory and then explore approaches to theorizing the Chinese context by developing a conflict coefficient model.

First, the application validity of paradigmatic theories is not sustainable; contextual factors are critical in applying and developing not only propositional but also paradigmatic theories, such as Agency Theory. Second, the Chinese context requires special attention when applying paradigmatic theories originating from Western countries. Third, the traditional application logic of Agency Theory is invalid in the Chinese context due to the coexistence of principal-agent conflicts (PAC) and principal–principal conflicts (PPC), and changeable dominance status of two conflicts according to the contexts. Based on these observations, a model of contextualization theory of PAC and PPC (i.e. conflict coefficient model) is developed from a dynamic perspective, which connects the separated situation states and allows the identification and measurement of the relative severity of the two types of agency conflicts.

Practitioners can also use this model to identify and measure the relative strength of the two conflicts and determine the direction of control and improvement. Moreover, analysis of Chinese context and agency problems of Chinese firms also has great practical significance considering the increased importance of the Chinese market and the increasingly important role played by Chinese firms in the international economy in general, and in specific host countries in particular.

First, in general, this study expands Whetten's (2009) study of the interface between theory and context. It specifically discusses approaches to considering contextual factors in the development and application of the relatively overlooked paradigmatic theories, using traditional and widely used Agency Theory as a lens. Our study suggests that typical Agency Theory, developed based on Western-centric assumptions, does not completely hold in the context of Chinese business practices because of different cultural, legal and governance realities. Second, it improves and extends the application of Agency Theory by proposing the new perspective that PAC and PPC coexist in specific contexts and positing that the relative severity of two types of agency conflicts depends on the context variables. Third, it puts forward a conflict coefficient model offering a more comprehensive, intuitive and quantifiable method for comparing the extent of the two conflicts in different scenarios, providing a reference for empirical studies of corporate governance.

The purpose of this paper is to review the utilization of game theory in the entrepreneurship literature. Game theory can potentially be employed to assess strategies incentivizing productive entrepreneurial activities and subsequent economic development. Therefore, the author reviews entrepreneurship articles and explores the application of game-theoretic models and concepts in the literature.

First, the author provides an overview of the entrepreneurship ecosystem concept, highlighting key challenges in its study. The author also briefly highlights successful applications of game theory in the innovation literature. Second, the author systematically reviews and synthesizes entrepreneurship research employing game-theoretic models and concepts. The author's objective is to provide a state-of-the-art overview of the use of game theory in entrepreneurship.

Broadly, the author categorizes entrepreneurship-game theory articles into three groups based on their scope and purpose: entrepreneurial policy applications, inter-firm applications and entrepreneurship theory applications. Entrepreneurial policy applications include entrepreneurs and the government or policy as the main players in a game. Inter-firm applications encompass games between entrepreneurs and other private entities. Entrepreneurship theory applications include articles that utilize game theory to advance the author's understanding of entrepreneurial behavior and/or mechanisms in the market.

To the best of the author's knowledge, no previous paper has reviewed the use of game-theoretic approaches and models in entrepreneurship literature. This study addresses this research gap.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the available literature on applications of the rough set theory. Concepts of the rough set theory are discussed for approximation, dependence and reduction of attributes, decision tables and decision rules. The applications of rough sets are discussed in pattern recognition, information processing, business and finance, industry, environment engineering, medical diagnosis and medical data analysis, system fault diagnosis and monitoring and intelligent control systems. Development trends and future efforts are outlined. An extensive list of references is also provided to encourage interested readers to pursue further investigations.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the advances in grey system theory research and various application achievements in science and engineering. At the same time, it commemorates the 40th anniversary of the birth of grey system theory and the 10th anniversary of Grey Systems–Theory and Application.

Firstly, the innovations of theoretical research in grey system theory were summarized and some of the widely recognized new results are briefly described. By searching and combing the research results of grey system theory in China national knowledge infrastructure (CNKI) database and Web of Science by Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), this paper shows the rapid development trend of grey system theory in the past 40 years, and the successful applications of grey system theory in the fields of social sciences, natural sciences and engineering technologies.

More than 227 thousands literature were found by input 10 phrases such as grey system, grey number and sequence operator etc. in CNKI database. After entering the new century, the number of grey system papers included in CNKI database is increasing rapidly. Since 2008, more than 10 thousands papers have been included per year and more than 15 thousands papers have been included per year since 2014. Grey system method and model are widely used in physics, chemistry, biology and other fields of natural science, as well as transportation, electric power, machinery and other fields of engineering technology, and a large number of valuable results have been achieved.

It can be seen that the grey system theory plays an important role in promoting China’s scientific and technological progress, innovation and development and high-level talent training from tens of thousands of literatures marked with important national science and technology projects and a large number of grey system literatures published by China’s double first-class universities and double first-class discipline construction universities.

Both innovations of theoretical research and practical application play important role in the growth of new theory. The innovations of theoretical research provide methods and tools for practical application, which is conducive to improve application efficiency and broaden application fields. A large number of practical applications needs have become the source of theoretical innovation and the solid background for the birth of theoretical innovation achievements.

Gives a bibliographical review of the finite element methods (FEMs) applied for the linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic analyses of basic structural elements from the theoretical as well as practical points of view. The range of applications of FEMs in this area is wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore aims to give the reader an encyclopaedic view on the subject. The bibliography at the end of the paper contains 2,025 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with the analysis of beams, columns, rods, bars, cables, discs, blades, shafts, membranes, plates and shells that were published in 1992‐1995.

Research on grey systems is becoming more sophisticated, and grey relational and prediction analyses are receiving close review worldwide. Particularly, the application of grey systems in marine economics is gaining importance. The purpose of this paper is to summarize and review literature on grey models, providing new directions in their application in the marine economy.

This paper organized seminal studies on grey systems published by Chinese core journal database – CNKI, Web of Science and Elsevier from 1982 to 2018. After searching the aforementioned database for the said duration, the authors used the CiteSpace visualization tools to analyze them.

The authors sorted the studies according to their countries/regions, institutions, keywords and categories using the CiteSpace tool; analyzed current research characteristics on grey models; and discussed their possible applications in marine businesses, economy, scientific research and education, marine environment and disasters. Finally, the authors pointed out the development trend of grey models.

Although researches are combining grey theory with fractals, neural networks, fuzzy theory and other methods, the applications, in terms of scope, have still not met the demand. With the increasingly in-depth research in marine economics and management, international marine economic research has entered a new period of development. Grey theory will certainly attract scholars’ attention, and its role in marine economy and management will gain considerable significance.

The purpose of this paper is to review the post‐1996 literature of information science and other disciplines for the application of social network theory and social network analysis to research that provides an understanding of information environments.

The literature review involved a content analysis of 373 articles retrieved from five electronic journal databases offering broad disciplinary coverage, and a selection of nine peer‐reviewed electronic access journals in information science. Each database was limited to academic or peer reviewed journals and searched using two query phrases: social network theory (SNT) and social network analysis (SNA).

The paper demonstrates the growth of interest by information science and other disciplines in research that applies social network theory and utilizes social network analysis, indicating what research approaches and major focus trends differentiate the disciplines.

The search phrases overlook articles using social networks as the only key phrase for indexing. However, the intention was to examine the application of a theoretical concept and specific methodology, so the terms used were appropriate for this purpose.

The paper identifies opportunities to apply social network theory and social network analysis to the study of the exchange of information resources.

The paper demonstrates that information science could advance valuable contributions to an understanding of information behavior using social network theory and social network analysis as a vehicle to connect with a significant body of existing research in other disciplines.

Given that marketing practitioners often perceive theory as something abstract, with little relevance to their work, the objective is to explain why and how competent application of theory can be highly useful and even lead to competitive advantage.

Conceptualisation and personal interpretation, with real‐world case examples.

Knowledge of relevant theoretical principles, if combined with thorough contextual knowledge and applied in a competent manner, can lead to competitive advantage based on better judgement and decisions.

The arguments and conclusions presented in the paper improve understanding of the potentially vital role of theory in practice, and provide a credible alternative to the common misperception that theory is of little value to the practitioner.