2025-2026 Webcast Lecture Series
An Abductive Approach to Qualitative Research
Dr. Stine Grodal
Friday, January 23 | Noon – 1:15 PM ET
Abstract
This webcast will focus on explicating a method for doing abductive research with qualitative data. In abduction researchers initially identify an anomaly that contradicts or cannot be explained by existing theory and subsequently they develop novel explanations that account for the anomaly using theoretical imagination. I explicate how abduction inverts many of the steps in a typical inductive qualitative process. Rather than avoiding theoretical interference, abduction starts by engaging with prior theory. Instead of data and theory being tight coupled throughout the research process, the link between explanations and data are initially loosely coupled and then tighten over time. Rather than rigor residing in initial coding, in abduction rigor is obtained through systematic sampling and analysis of empirical data at the end of the process. This webinar thus reconsiders core tenets of qualitative research to help researchers develop impactful contributions to organizational theory.
Dr. Stine Grodal
Biography
Stine Grodal is a Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University D’Amore-McKim School of Business in the department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She received her PhD from Stanford University in Management Science and Engineering. Grodal has developed and delivered classes globally on innovation, strategy and design thinking to undergraduates, graduate students and executives. Her research examines the emergence and evolution of markets and industries. She is especially interested in how firms can shape and exploit the socio-cognitive elements of markets. Her research has received numerous awards including the EGOS Best Paper Award and the TIM Best Paper Award. Her work has been published in both management and sociology journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal and American Sociological Review. Her work has also been published in practitioner oriented journals such as MIT Sloan Management Review and IESE Insight. Grodal is committed to research methods. She is known for her expertise in using interviews, ethnography and in-depth archival research, which she combines with quantitative analyses and online experiments when appropriate.
