Rediscovering Abductive Reasoning in Organization Development and Change Research

Abstract

This article explores how abductive reasoning is central to Mode 2 organization development and change (ODC) research, despite the rarity with which it is made explicit. It differentiates between Peirce’s notions of deduction, induction, and abduction in the field of ODC and explores how Mode 2 ODC research, particularly that involving collaboration between academics and practitioners, draws on abductive reasoning. It is when confronted with an array of puzzling and paradoxical data that insights constitute abductive reasoning, a fundamental element in both the production of knowledge and the development of successful organizational interventions.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 47 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.