14 Growing the Field: The Institutional, Theoretical, and Conceptual Maturation of "Public Participation" Part 3: Theoretical Maturation Sara Nora Ross and Nancy Glock-Grueneich Abstract Developmental stages and patterns appear in many fields of sustained endeavor. When development is used as a lens to consider past, present, and future activity, it supports efforts to increase the maturity of a field. The developmental approach to theoretical maturation used here enables a crosscutting integration. We give simultaneous attention to four dimensions of public participationthe field, the phenomena studied, the methods used to identify and study phenomena, and the people who do theory, research, and practice. The discussion is framed using four theory-based stages of development that convey patterns of increases in comprehensiveness and complexity. The distinct tasks of each stage, along with the contributions they make to the field, are introduced in theoretical, methodological, and practical terms. Keywords: Complexity, crosscutting, developmental stages, field, maturation, methods, patterns, practice, phenomena, theory The maturation of theory is dependent upon, and helps drive, the maturation of practice, and in fact such development can be difficult even to see without purposeful effort. As the field of public administration was evolving, one of its contributors urged that: Awareness of these developmental phases is important, perhaps even critical, for two reasons: (1) valuable perspective on where the field is can be gained from tracing how it got there; and (2) getting where you want to go is easier if you are clear on where you have been and where you are. (Gelembiewski, 1977, p. 4)