T
he
experience of theorizing is much like the experience of sensemaking. Bothconsist of actions that are explicative, evocative, equivocality reducing, exegetical,transient, narrative, embedded in paradigms, and meaningful. It is this corres-pondence that supplies both the topic and the resources for this chapter. And it isrespect for this correspondence that is characteristic of the actual process of theory development that will be described. This correspondence is noteworthy since it isoften neglected in polished prescriptions for steps to follow when trying to developtheory (e.g., Donaldson,
2003
). The result of this neglect is theories that have lessimpact than they could have because authors hold back from digging deeper intotheir own experience and intuitions for ideas that matter. I discuss these issues inthe following manner. First, I discuss the phenomenon of sensemaking, samplingheavily some properties that have a direct bearing on theory development. Second,I reverse the emphasis and take a closer look at the nature of the theorizing that