Abstract
<p>Empirical studies are routinely interpreted as tests of the general theories that motivate them. We argue that this familiar inference is incomplete. Every empirical implementation necessarily turns a general theoretical claim into a more specific proposition by committing the test to particular comparison levels, temporal structures, populations, and other theoretically consequential features. When the general theory does not provide corresponding theoretical specification, the study can establish a robust empirical result while what that result means for the theory remains underdetermined. Empirical studies therefore directly evaluate study-specific propositions, not underspecified general theories.We develop a framework for identifying and resolving this inferential gap. The central insight is that the empirical specificity creating the problem also provides the missing reference point for its solution: it reveals where additional theoretical specification is required. The Specification Matrix makes this relation evaluable by identifying points of Theory–Study Incoherence and translating them into questions that guide substantive theoretical elaboration. This process yields a Study-Specific Theory, Ti, that provides an explicit theoretical basis for the proposition tested by the study.The framework shifts the long-standing demand for more precise theories to a relational criterion: Is the theory sufficiently specified for this particular empirical test? Establishing Theory–Study Coherence gives empirical evidence a specified theoretical referent, while making clear that inference from Ti to the broader theory remains a separate step of theoretical synthesis.</p>