humrel-theory-development
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.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill humrel-theory-development --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# 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 A con
- When to trigger
- The HR standard: a substantive theoretical contribution drawing on social theory
- Mechanism first, grounded in a social process
- Process theory vs. variance theory — match the form to the phenomenon
- Critical and reflexive theorizing
- Inductive vs. deductive
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Output format
What does the humrel-theory-development skill do?
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.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill humrel-theory-development --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.