Linking practical advice to theory is central to reproducing applied management sciences – that is, prescriptive knowledge production. Strategy research makes this claim in particular, and therefore we examine its propensity to providing managerial prescriptions. We sampled the dynamic capability research program from academic top journals and coded 153 articles of which 39.6% stated prescriptions to management. Whereas a long-standing belief point to qualitative methods as superior rational for producing prescriptive knowledge, our data suggest not. Instead, data analysis uncover pluralistic patterns of philosophies and methods in use where six ‘strategy tribes’ explains why an increased propensity to provide managerial prescriptions recurred. Our study confirms tribalism as a source to the academia-practice divide, but unexpectedly highlights its productive role in prescriptive enterprises of social sciences.