The theory building (the creation of a ‘body of knowledge’ or understanding) occurs in two ways or stages; first there is a descriptive or inductive stage where researchers observe phenomena and describe and measure what they see .

Based on these observations, researchers develop constructs that abstract the essence of what has been observed, classify or categorise these observations, and identify relationships between them. Through these activities, researchers develop theories or models which organise the aspects of the world they study.

 Second, in a deductive process, researchers test and improve these theories by exploring whether the same correlations exist in different data sets. This hypothesis testing allows the theory to be confirmed or rejected, and it also permits further specification of the theory to define the phenomena more precisely or specify the circumstances under which correlations hold. Where the goal of research is discovery or new explanations, case studies may offer a more powerful research design than experimental methods.