Explicit Theory Use in Software Engineering: A Systematic Mapping-Based Survey

Software Engineering has become an increasingly empirical discipline, producing substantial evidence about methods, tools, processes, teams, organizations, and software artifacts. However, empirical evidence alone is insufficient to accumulate knowledge across contexts. Theories help connect findings by providing concepts, relations, and assumptions that can guide study design, support explanation, and make knowledge more reusable. In SE, theory use is visible but heterogeneous, and it remains unclear which theories are explicitly used, how they are used, where they originate, and which SE areas they support. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic mapping study of explicit theory use in SE. Analyzing 173 primary articles published between 1989 and 2025, we identified 160 unique theories and 236 theory-use instances, which we classified using Gregor's theory types, Hannay et al.'s theory roles, and SWEBOK knowledge areas. The results show that SE is not an atheoretical field, but theory use is uneven. A small set of recurrent theories coexists with a long tail of theories used only once. Most theories originate outside SE, mainly from behavioral and organizational disciplines, and are frequently used to explain phenomena, guide study design, or interpret findings rather than to support prediction, systematic testing, or refinement. Theory-based articles are concentrated in socio-technical topics, while core technical areas show more limited explicit theoretical grounding. The study provides a structured map of explicit theory use in SE and shows that the field has incorporated theoretical resources from multiple disciplines, but this variety does not consistently translate into cumulative theoretical development. Future work should strengthen theory testing, adaptation, and synthesis, and develop more explicit theoretical accounts for technical and design-oriented SE problems.