Many focused on the hydroxypalladation step, which forms the C–O bond. Early reactions used conditions much milder than the industrial plants and obtained contradictory results; the modern consensus is that the step's stereochemistry is quite sensitive to chloride concentrations.

Other studies investigated reaction's application to more complex terminal olefins. High-order olefins are insoluble in water, but Clement and Selwitz found that aqueous DMF