Theory isn't always easy and requires someone with a mind capable of taking abstracts and putting them into concrete pieces that explain phenomenon through key measurable factors. For many, that is not something easy to do. Doctoral students often focus on developing a single new piece of knowledge within a theory and can spend a lifetime at it. Those who want to develop whole new theories would be taking an awfully big bite and would likely get lost.
I have been working on an economic cluster theory that has been developing organically since 2012 (Actually a little earlier.) I work on it, ignore it, watch the news, see how that applies, and then adjust. It becomes a Hodge Podge mess but eventually there are patterns that form and then a rewrite becomes possible. That will make it more clear once a rewrite has been done (There are way too many things to justify but its sound and supported by other research and theory. Kind of a macro innovation theory.).
While this theory started organically it wasn't until later I noticed it paralleled a few more similar theories out there (I'm not sure which was first. I doubt I was but there wasn't a lot of literature out there prior and more showed up over the last decade. So I can only say bits and pieces are similar and some are different.). Because it was similar in some ways, yet having its own characteristics (The benefit of having a different lines of development) it creates something new that might reach a little further in some areas than others (I'm not an indoctrinated person but qualified enough to make scientific connections.).
Sometimes it is the small that is significant in theory development and that can lead to bigger things. Indoctrination up to a point of understanding something and having a method is helpful but not so much as to limit thinking outside those mental frameworks. When that happens we just dig deeper with little brought thought or wider connections (Some are more hardwired to see things others can't.)
Whether your a college student, business executive, Ph.D. student or seasoned scientist we follow similar methods of discovery. There will be data diggers that go deeper and there others that go broader. The latter and its applicability is just as important, if not more important, as the former but we don't often encourage it in higher edu.
Innovation and development come from practical application beyond the journals and elbow patches. My goal is to draft and draft fast and then go back over it many times finding ways to improve and connect it.
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