Abstract
Despite the recent growth in research methods papers covering elite interviews, there still exists a lack of understanding processes of theorizing during such qualitative field work. Corporate elites are highly consequential as they have rich understandings of, and, at the same time, shape organizational phenomena. This paper explores how qualitative management researchers can improve processes of theorizing in elite interviews. It draws on autoethnographic observations and documentary research from a 14-year practice of meeting and interviewing business executives as an investment manager and 6 years as an academic, across multiple geographies. Using analytical autoethnography, learnings of practitioner and academic elite interviews are analyzed revealing strategies to approach theorizing in this context. Immersive theorizing is developed and proposed to enrich the practical relevance and explanatory power of organization theory, as well as the theorizing repertoire of qualitative researchers.