From the information gleaned from the syllabi and our interviews, learning about theory and theory building occurs through both structured and unstructured learning approaches. In terms of structured approaches, some doctoral programs offer a course or part of a course on these topics. However, our experts generally acknowledged that the development of theory and theory-building skills occurs in unstructured settings as well, such as in mentoring collaborations and professional development workshops (e.g., the Academy of Management’s professional development workshop on theory writing). Most of the experts we interviewed engaged in some combination of structured and unstructured approaches when transmitting
knowledge associated with theory; we believe that
this dual approach is probably the most effective.