Though scholars employ abduction, there is no agreed-upon structure to reporting their findings. Moreover, the traditional hypo-deductive reasoning structure does not align with the epistemology of abduction. We propose an abductive testimonial structure, termed PEEBI, which consists of five sections in which the authors take prior knowledge and theories, establish the context and observations that are worthy of interest, identify and evaluate candidate explanations for the observed patterns, determine the best explanation and their reasoning for accepting it, and abstract the best explanation to a more generalizable theoretical contribution. Consistent with abductive epistemology, PEEBI advances knowledge in a modest, stepwise fashion. PEEBI foregrounds transparency and communication of the author's judgment and elevates the role of the readers by giving them information to better make judgments.
Sandeep Devanatha Pillai (Tulane), Brent Goldfarb, David A. Kirsch, Evan Starr, and Seojin Kim (Drexel)
Strategic Management Journal