ABSTRACT
While much has been achieved with theory development in marketing, further progress will be seriously hampered unless there is fuller empirical investigation of general theoretical structures and more explicit consideration is given to bridging theory and practice. This chapter addresses these two issues. First, the nature of theorizing and the types of theoretical contribution that can be made are considered. The next section examines the reasoning skills for theorizing in the contexts of the discovery of theory and the justification of theory. The third section expands on the theorizing process by elaborating on the role of middle range theory in bridging theory and practice. The final sections illustrate the middle range theory process drawing on the author's recent work.
