As a student of abduction, I read Fleming and Oswick’s (2026) article titled Advancing Abductive Theory Building, published in the Journal of Management Studies, with great enthusiasm. However, the experience left me disappointed, as it misunderstands and misrepresents some of the key literature on abduction.
The problems begin already on page one of the introduction with the claim: “Abduction is known as ‘inference to best explanation’ and was first expounded by the pragmatist philosopher Charles S. Peirce (1955, 1978, 1998) as a third type of reasoning (in addition to deduction and induction)” (Fleming & Oswick, 2026, p.2257). This statement will lead the unsuspecting reader to believe that Peirce talked about inference to the best explanation. He did not. In fact, Harry Frankfurt (1958) criticized Peirce’s (1998 a, b) notion of explanation—suspicion that the proposed hypothesis is true—as a weak selection criterion, as there may be many hypotheses that account for a given unexplained fact. The term “inference to the best explanation” was first introduced by Harman in 1965 and subsequently expounded by Lipton (1991).
Today, our understanding of abduction spans the logic of discovery (Hansen, 2008; Hanson, 1958; Peirce, 1998 a, b) and logic of pursuit (Bhardwaj, Sergeeeva, Mahoney & Nickerson, 2025; Lipton, 1991), that is: noticing and verifying an anomaly, the generation of plausible explanations (logic of discovery), and the consistent use of a set of selection criteria (epistemic values) to select a best explanation (logic of pursuit) (Bhardwaj et al., 2025; Sætre & Van De Ven, 2021). In other words, today our understanding of abduction spans the logic of discovery and pursuit and thus includes inference to the best explanation. However, this is more in spite of Peirce than because of Peirce.
Another key reference for Fleming and Oswick (2026) is Sætre and Van de Ven’s (2021) article, along with their (2024) short commentary. Fleming and Oswick (2026) reference these two papers more than 50 times in their article. Alas, most of their references to these two works consist of misattributions, misunderstandings, and misleading claims. A key issue here is that Fleming and Oswick (2026) consistently treat Sætre and Van de Ven’s (2021, 2024) approach to abduction as positivist and call their approach to abduction “programmatic.” At first, I struggled to understand how Fleming and Oswick (2026) came to this conclusion. Abduction belongs to pragmatism, and Sætre and Van de Ven are both critical realists; neither of them is a positivist. But there are a few clues in their article:
“Abductive scholars are encouraged [by Sætre & Van de Ven, 2021] to progress through each stage in consecutive order, concluding with empirically testing the theory.” (Fleming & Oswick, 2026, p. 2263).
In their table on page 2264, Fleming and Oswick (2026) make the same point, saying that Sætre and Van de Ven (2021) focus on “Anomaly, informed hunches, and inductive testing using empirical data».
“Sætre and Van de Ven (2021, p. 696) argue that the final phase of abduction involves ‘inductively testing’ a new conjecture to determine its veracity.” (Fleming & Oswick, 2026, p. 2268).
But do Sætre and Van de Ven (2021) treat empirical testing as an integral part of abduction? No, they unequivocally do not.
Here is what Sætre and Van de Ven actually say: “Since knowledge advances with the comparative method, we propose that theory creation is improved by selecting and comparing the most plausible hunches for subsequent inductive [emphasis added] testing.” (Sætre & Van de Ven, 2021, p. 691). This cannot be stated much more clearly. Abduction and induction are separate. Although abduction spans the logics of discovery and pursuit, induction belongs to the logic of justification and is separate from abduction. On pages 686 and 696, Sætre and Van de Ven (2021) say the same thing, and so does their abstract. In other words, if the abductive process has led to a testable hypothesis, they recommend testing the most plausible explanation inductively in a separate inductive research process (following the logic of justification). What Fleming and Oswick (2026) have done is to conflate abduction and induction, which Peirce (1998 a, b) himself cautioned against.
Fleming and Oswick argue that Sætre and Van de Ven (2021, 2024) present a “stiff programmatic framework” (2026, pp. 2266-2267) for abduction. Whereas in fact, Sætre and Van de Ven argue that abduction consists of “four steps that may recur to make sense of complex phenomena” (2021, p. 686). Furthermore, “Although the four steps in the abductive process were discussed as conceptually distinct and logically sequential, in practice they may overlap, iterate, and unfold in stochastic ways over time” (Sætre & Van de Ven, 2021, p. 693). In other words, Sætre and Van de Ven (2021, 2024) present a broad protocol for abduction. Future abductive scholars should be comfortable working with the ambiguity and dynamism inherent in the abductive process. Making sense of complex and heretofore unexplained phenomena hinges upon generating multiple plausible explanations and using diverse epistemic values to consistently evaluate and select the best explanation (Bhardwaj et al., 2025; Sætre & Van de Ven, 2021, 2024)
Fleming and Oswick (2026) continue misrepresenting what Sætre and Van de Ven’s arguments: “Unfortunately, Sætre and Van de Ven (2021, 2024) limit this sociality to a dyadic exchange between theorist and trusted ‘sparring partner’ during the formulation stage.” (2026, p. 2269). Really? Do they limit the abductive process to a dyad? No, not at all. Sætre and Van de Ven argue that: “[U]sing gradually expanding circles: first in taking the risk of sharing hunches with an intimate sparring dyad (coauthors), then gradually expanding the circle until fully engaging with the research community and practitioners” (2021, p. 697). In other words, the abductive process is not limited to a dyad, although it may begin there.
Fleming and Oswick’s (2026) comparative table (Table 1), and thus the key contribution of their article, collapses. On the one hand, Hansen (2008) focuses exclusively on the logic of discovery and thus represents a rather dated (pure Peircean) view of abduction that remains unadopted in management and strategy research. Current incarnations of abduction—those employed in management and strategy research—span the logic of discovery and the logic of pursuit (Bhardwaj et al., 2025; Sætre & Van de Ven, 2021; 2024). And Sætre and Van de Ven (2021) do not present a positivist and programmatic approach to abduction that Fleming and Oswick (2026) claim. The use of two “straw man” type comparative columns distorts and diminishes the value of their contribution. Would-be abductive scholars looking for general advice and a broad protocol from abduction should look to Bhardwaj et al. (2025) and Sætre and Van de Ven (2021, 2024). If seeking more specific advice on how to use abduction in empirical studies, I recommend starting with Miller, Chattopadhyay, Bamberger, and Rockman (2025).
References
Bhardwaj, A., Sergeeva, A., Mahoney, J. T. and Nickerson, J. A. (2025). ‘Theorizing as problem solving: A pragmatist perspective on the logic of pursuit’. Strategy Science, 46.
Fleming, P. and Oswick, C. (2025). ‘Advancing abductive theory building: Balancing creative curiosity and programmatic rigour through ‘loosely coupled abduction’. Journal of Management Studies.
Frankfurt, H. G. (1958). ‘Peirce’s notion of abduction’. The Journal of Philosophy, 55, 593–593.
Hansen, H. (2008). ‘Abduction’. In Barry, D. and Hansen, H. (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of New Approaches in Management and Organizations. London: SAGE, 454–463.
Hanson, N. R. (1958). ‘The Logic of Discovery’. The Journal of Philosophy, 55, 1073–1089.
Harman, G. H. (1965). ‘The Inference to the Best Explanation’. The Philosophical Review, 74, 88–95.
Lipton, P. (1991). Inference to the best explanation. London: Routledge.
Miller, C. C., Chattopadhyay, P., Bamberger, P. and Rockmann, K. (2025). ‘Leveraging Empirical Abduction to Bridge the Rigor–Relevance Divide: Celebrating 10 Years of Academy of Management Discoveries’. Academy of Management Discoveries, 11, 325–331.
Peirce, C. S. (1998a). The essential Peirce, volume 1: Selected philosophical writings, 1893-1913. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Peirce, C. S. (1998b). The essential Peirce, volume 2: Selected philosophical writings, 1893-1913. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Sætre, A. S. and Van de Ven, A. (2021). ‘Generating theory by abduction’. Academy of Management Review, 46, 684–701.
Sætre, A. S. and Van de Ven, A. (2024). ‘Abductive theorizing is more than Idea Generation: Disciplined imagination and a prepared mind’. Academy of Management Review, 49, 454–457.
