General theory can blind researchers to novel phenomena that grounded fieldwork reveals

Evidence

General concepts such as path dependence typically provide limitedly useful guidance for field researchers struggling to identify and conceptualize novel substantive phenomena pertaining to highly complex systems. At best, such guidance may lead to finding additional illustrations of the general phenomenon as it is already understood; but more likely, it runs the risk of directing attention away from potentially interesting but less immediately identifiable novel substantive phenomena. The longitudinal research of Intel’s evolution, for instance, was not guided by general theory about path dependence; yet, with the help of grounded theorizing (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) it was able to identify and conceptualize the phenomenon of co-evolutionary lock-in which, as this paper suggests, can be fruitfully related to path dependence theory. Hence, it would seem that examining – from the inside out, so to speak – the potential links between a newly discovered substantive phenomenon and more general theoretical concepts may be most likely to significantly deepen our understanding. — Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow, The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence, 1147

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Inverts the usual hierarchy in which general theory guides field research: here strong prior concepts actively direct attention away from what is most novel. The ‘inside out’ prescription inverts how most social science is actually done.
• SEED: An essay on why grand theories are bad instruments of discovery — that the most interesting findings come from phenomena that had no name before someone studied them closely.