Grand theory is a term coined by the American sociologist C. Wright Mills in The Sociological Imagination[1] to refer to the form of highly abstract theorizing in which the formal organization and arrangement of concepts takes priority over understanding the social reality.
In his view, grand theory is more or less separate from concrete concerns of everyday life and its variety in time and space.
[2] In Mills' view "grand theory" integrated not only sociological concepts, but also psychological, economic, political, and religious or philosophical components.
Barnes and Gregory[2] confirmed this, and noticed in addition, "No matter the phenomenon investigated, it could always be slotted into a wider theoretical scheme.
One social theorist talks of the search as: ... to find a pathway between and beyond the modern confidence in grand theory and the postmodern rejection of other than piece-meal explanations for this and that discursive practice.