In this paper, we outline the CINE method with a focus on understanding Asian managers from the simultaneous influence of their sensing, talking sense and sense-making, and we discuss advantages and limitations. We also report on our methodological plans for a pilot study conducted in Thailand, where we aim to explore the embodied, discursive and cognitive constructions of Thai managers. In an ‘embodied’ culture like Thailand where cognitive and rationalistic Cartesian perspectives are foreign and imported, we find that our focus on corporeal, affective and sensory realities in addition to discourse and cognitions is particularly appropriate. Our intention is to advocate a way of cultivating indigenous approaches that escape from intellectual and ‘disembodied’ colonization by Western theories.