Research on Grand Challenges: Adopting an Abductive Experimentation Methodology
基于作者十年来的重大挑战研究项目，提出了一种名为“溯因实验”的方法论，通过循环产生怀疑与信念、迭代归纳与溯因推理，帮助学者研究高度复杂和不确定的现象，并弥合理论与实践的人为二元对立。
There has been a growing interest among management scholars in conducting research on grand challenges. Despite recognizing that studying such highly complex and uncertain phenomena likely requires more unconventional approaches, there has been very little methodological guidance provided to interested scholars. Drawing upon our own grand challenge projects undertaken over the past decade, we put forward a methodological approach we term 'abductive experimentation'. Such an approach is an action-oriented process of inquiry that cycles between generating 'doubt' and generating 'belief'. More specifically, abductive experimentation iterates between induction, abduction, and deduction to both generate and reconcile 'surprising' findings and causal mechanisms. While we submit abductive experimentation as a methodological approach particularly well suited to the study of grand challenges, we believe that the process depicted also provides a general roadmap for scholars seeking to dismantle the artificial dualism between theory and practice.