Abduction 101: Reasoning processes to aid discovery

Abstract

We propose that the process of abduction is a useful tool for how management scholars can better develop new explanatory hypotheses and theories. In doing so, we differentiate abduction from the more commonly studied methods of deduction and induction. We briefly explain the various research streams on abductive reasoning and propose a version that is focused more on the process of abductive reasoning and less on the outcomes. We argue that by using contrastive reasoning and by recognizing different triggers of abduction, this process can help guide researchers to the types of causal explanations that are interesting. We conclude with some examples of abduction in the history of management research and a discussion of features of the reasoning processes involved.

Introduction

A Greek word, ἀπαγωγή, is in this sentence. You suspect its presence is related to this special issue's topic—induction. To reach that tentative conclusion, however, you did not do what's ordinarily called induction. It was not an inference based on accumulated evidence, not reasoning from the specific to the general. Nor was it a deductive inference, a conclusion entailed by its premises. Indeed, it was only a reasonable inference, not a definitive conclusion. What makes it reasonable? If it turns out to be true, for example, you won't say “Wow, what a lucky guess!” or “What an amazing coincidence!” In essence a tacit reasoning process led you to form a plausible hypothesis (“I'll bet that Greek word is in some way related to induction”), and ἀπαγωγή has been used as a label for such processes. Understanding how they function will aid conceptual developments in the study of management, and that is what accounts for the otherwise puzzling appearance of a Greek word in our opening sentence.

That word refers to abduction, which Aristotle included with induction and deduction as one of three types of inferences. His spelling of the first two—ἀπαγωγή, for abduction, and ἐπαγωγή, for induction—differs only by an initial letter, whereas the spelling of deduction—συλλoγισμ'oς—does not share a single letter with either of them (Magnani, 2015). The following section portrays the relations among these three types of inferences in a manner consistent with those Greek spellings. We first describe a feature unique to deduction, placing induction and abduction into the shared category of inferences lacking that feature. We discuss how induction and abduction represent variations in this type of inference and then indicate how abduction differs from induction despite sharing the feature of being non-deductive. Next, we describe various forms of abduction, focusing on the process of abductive reasoning rather than the product of it. Singling out one in particular, we describe best-practice uses of it.