From Hypothesis Testing Towards Inference to Best Explanation: A PEEBI Testimonial Structure for Abductive Studies in Strategy

34 Pages Posted: 11 Feb 2025

See all articles by Sandeep Pillai

Sandeep Pillai

Bocconi University - Department of Management and Technology

Brent Goldfarb

University of Maryland - Robert H. Smith School of Business

David Kirsch

University of Maryland

Seojin Kim

Drexel University - Bennett S. LeBow College of Business

Evan Starr

University of Maryland - Robert H. Smith School of Business

Date Written: December 23, 2024

Abstract

Though scholars are increasingly employing abduction, there is no agreed-upon structure for its testimony, and, as we demonstrate, the hypo-deductive reasoning structure does not align with the epistemology of abduction. We propose an abductive testimonial structure, termed PEEBI, which consists of 5 acts in which the authors take prior knowledge and theories, establish the context and observations that are worthy of scholarly interest, identify candidate explanations that may explain the observed patterns, evaluate the candidate explanations, determine the best explanation, and abstract the best explanation to a more generalizable theoretical contribution. This structure makes communication of the author's judgment an important purpose of a paper and elevates the role of the readers by giving them the capacity to make their own judgments.

Keywords: Abduction, Philosophy of Science, Narratives, Testimony, Reasoning

JEL Classification: M1, A1

Suggested Citation

Pillai, Sandeep and Goldfarb, Brent D. and Kirsch, David and Kim, Seojin and Starr, Evan, From Hypothesis Testing Towards Inference to Best Explanation: A PEEBI Testimonial Structure for Abductive Studies in Strategy (December 23, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5073982 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5073982

Sandeep Pillai

Bocconi University - Department of Management and Technology ( email )

Via Roentgen 1
Milan, MI 20136
Italy

Brent D. Goldfarb

University of Maryland - Robert H. Smith School of Business ( email )

College Park, MD 20742-1815
United States
301-405-9672 (Phone)
301-314-8787 (Fax)

David Kirsch

University of Maryland ( email )

College Park
College Park, MD 20742
United States

Seojin Kim

Drexel University - Bennett S. LeBow College of Business ( email )

101 N. 33rd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
United States

Evan Starr (Contact Author)

University of Maryland - Robert H. Smith School of Business ( email )

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