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The nursing literature is rich with ideas regarding different strategies for theory development and construction. This literature can be divided into two camps: (a) one that depicts theory construction strategies basically from the deductive, analytically derivative orientation (for example see, Hardy, 1973, Chinn & Jacobs, 1978, and Walker & Avant, 1988), and (b) the other that supports theory construction from the inductive or empirical orientation as in the grounded theory methodology, ethnography, and phenomenology (see Sarter, 1988). Generation of nursing knowledge hence appears to be closely tied to these two camps with little integration between them. On one hand, testing for verification and refutation is emphasized for theories developed from the deductive, analytic tradition, while on the other, accumulation of situation -specific theories and generalizations is stressed as the basis for broadening nursing´s knowledge base by those with the "qualitative," empirical orientation. What is proposed in this paper is an approach of theory generation that reconciles strategies
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