Sub-Plenary 2-5
Beyond Induction: New Direction in Qualitative Methods
Friday, July 4, 2025, 16:00–17:30 EEST
Room: Deree – 7th Level Auditorium
Organizers:
Mia Chang-Zunino, ESCP Business School, France
Stine Grodal, Northeastern University, USA
Anders Dahl Krabbe, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Panelists:
David A. Kirsch, University of Maryland, USA
Anders Dahl Krabbe, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Saku Mantere, McGill University, Canada
Henri Schildt, Aalto University, Finland
The motivation for the sub-plenary is to ignite a conversation about the use of induction as the go-to method for qualitative research in management. Instead of induction we suggest that we need to look towards other methods, such as abduction, as the foundation for qualitative theory building. We also seek to ignite a conversation about how induction is incorporated into the tools, practices and templates that we have for qualitative research, such as Nvivo and Atlas.ti, and how novel tools, such as AI, might provide new paths forward for doing qualitative research.
Since the publication of “Discovery of Grounded Theory” in 1967, induction has been a highly influential approach to theory
building within management and organization theory (Eisenhardt, 1989; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Indeed, the label “inductive”
research is often used as a synonym for qualitative research (Huberman & Miles, 1994). The notion of inductive theory building
was initially intended as a contrast to both the hypothetico-deductive method in which empirically testable hypotheses are
deduced from existing theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). A core assumption of induction is that existing theory should not interfere
with empirical observations during the early stages of analysis. This is an important element of inductive, because existing
theory should not bias empirical observation (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
Another core assumptions of induction as it has been applied in management, is that theorizing is a bottom-up activity which
moves from a foundation of empirical observation, such as open coding of interview quotes, to an iterative activity of abstracting,
typically by merging and synthesizing codes or concepts (Gehman et al., 2017; Gioia et al., 2013). The concepts and categories
that form the building blocks of theorizing are thus contained within the data and can therefore be emerge inductively to
form overarching categories (Charmaz, 2006; Gioia, 2021). These principles of inductive research have become so ingrained
into how qualitative research is done that they are integrated into the affordances of the software that qualitative researchers
use to analyze their data such as Nvivo and Atlas.ti (Woods et al., 2016). Inductive approaches to qualitative research have
been reified and taken-for-granted to the extent that many scholars lately have argued that the practice of qualitative research
has been templated (Gioia et al., 2022; Langley & Abdallah, 2015).
Recently, scholars have begun to challenge the notion that induction is the only or even primary way to conduct qualitative
research (Grodal et al., 2021; Sætre & Van de Ven, 2021; Timmermans & Tavory, 2012). Some have argued that the term induction
as it has been used with qualitative methodology differs considerably from its philosophical origin as a generalization of
a rule from an observation (Ketokivi & Mantere, 2010). Indeed, often qualitative authors in management have even used the
term “induction” beyond it’s narrowly defined meaning of generating theory from conceptual description of data (Gioia et al.,
2013; Golden-Biddle & Locke, 2007). Other scholars have argued that the stylized inductive process of merging categories and
concepts through a continues process of aggregation does not fully encompass the moves that qualitative scholars use for theory
building (Grodal et al., 2021), and that induction has a poor track record in generating theoretical novelty (Timmermans &
Tavory, 2012).
Thus, a range of authors have begun to question the theoretical and methodological value of pure induction as the foundation
of qualitative scholarship. The critique of induction and the solutions that scholars propose to move beyond induction come
from multiple angles including pragmatic considerations of the affordances of the data from which we theorize (Grodal et al.,
2021), a focus on how we develop novel methods for working with qualitative research (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012) and a reflection
about how the tools that we use like Nvivo and Atlas.ti are built on an inductive methodology, and whether other tools, for example based on AI, might better serve qualitative theory
development.
The motivation for this sub-plenary is thus a diagnosis of our field as being on a transitory path away from induction and
to invite scholars from different theoretical and methodological vantagepoints to expose alternatives paths that future qualitative
scholars can walk on to build better theories of organizations and management. Each panelist will share their view on the
methodological future of qualitative theorizing and offer their perspective on whether and how our field should move beyond
induction.
References ...
- ... will soon be published here!
Biographies
Mia Chang-Zunino is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Entrepreneurship, ESCP Business School in Paris, France. Her research examines
the evolution of technologies, markets, and the socio-cognitive constructs underlying these technologies and markets. Mia
is particularly interested in how novel concepts are transformed into new material, market, and social realities. Her research
has been published or has conditional accept in Academy of Management Annals and Administrative Science Quarterly.
Anders Dahl Krabbe is an Assistant Professor at the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. His research focuses the evolution of markets and industries,
often with attention to technological change and broader cultural trends in society. In terms of methods, he opts for inductive,
qualitative approaches, often drawing on archival material. Anders’ research has been published or is forthcoming in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Annals, Research Policy, and Research in the Sociology of Organizations.
Stine Grodal is a Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business,
USA. Her research focuses on the emergence and evolution of markets, industries and organizational fields with a specific
focus on the role categories and their associated labels play in this process. Stine’s work is interdisciplinary and blends
theories from sociology and psychology with strategy. She mostly draws on qualitative methods but combines qualitative analysis
with quantitative analysis and experiments when necessary. Her work has, among others, been published in Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review, Organization Science, and Academy of Management Journal.
David A. Kirsch is Associate Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship in the M&O Department at the University of Maryland's Robert H.
Smith School of Business, USA. His research interests include industry emergence, technological choice, technological failure
and the role of entrepreneurship in the emergence of new industries. His work on the early history of the automobile industry
has also been published in Business History Review and Technology and Culture. In 2003, his co-authored article on the Electric Vehicle Company received the IEEE Life Members Prize from the Society for
the History of Technology. David is also interested in methodological problems associated with historical scholarship in the
digital age. With the support of grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Library of Congress, he is currently building
a digital archive of the Dot Com Era that will preserve at-risk, born-digital content about business and culture during the
late 1990s.
Saku Mantere is Professor of Strategy and Organization at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, Canada, and Director
of the Marcel Desautels Institute for Integrated Management. His research focuses on strategic organizations; on questions
such as what it is that makes organizations strategic and how strategic management affects organizations. Saku is particularly
interested in strategic change, middle management agency and strategy discourse, as well as in methodological issues in management
studies, such as the practice of qualitative research and reasoning in theorizing about organizations. His work has been published
in journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Strategic
Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, and Strategic Organization.
Henri Schildt is Professor of Strategy at Aalto University, Finland, with a joint appointment at the School of Business and School of Science.
He is currently heading the Department of Management Studies. His areas of interest in teaching and research include digitalization,
strategy processes, social entrepreneurship, and organizational change. His research has been published in the leading academic
journals including Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal. Henri currently doing research on digital strategies and data-driven management, and is the principal investigator in Academy
of Finland funded project studying how social enterprises and NGOs work with refugees to counter marginalization.