OrganizationScience Vol. 19, No. 6, November���December 2008, pp. 907���918 issn 1047-7039 eissn 1526-5455 08 1906 0907 informs �� doi 10.1287/orsc.1080.0398 �� 2008 INFORMS Making Doubt Generative: Rethinking the Role of Doubt in the Research Process Karen Locke Mason School of Business, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia 23185, karen.locke@mason.wm.edu Karen Golden-Biddle School of Management, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, kgbiddle@bu.edu Martha S. Feldman Department of Planning, Policy, and Design, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697-7075, feldmanm@uci.edu Ipreciated n this paper, we want to shift the attention of our scholarly community to the living condition of doubt and its underap- significance for the theorizing process. Drawing on Peirce���s notion of abduction, we articulate the relationship between doubt and belief in the everyday imaginative work central to theorizing, and establish the role played by doubt as abduction���s engine in these efforts. We propose three strategic principles for engaging and using doubt in the research process. In concluding, we explore our field���s overemphasis on validation to the exclusion of discovery processes and to the detriment of excellence in theorizing. We call for a broadening of our notions of ���methodology��� to incorporate discovery processes and to begin their explication. Key words: doubt abduction theorizing research process discovery History: Published online in Articles in Advance October 22, 2008. Theory cannot be improved until we improve the the- orizing process, and we cannot improve the theorizing process until we describe it more explicitly, operate it more self-consciously, and decouple it from validation more deliberately. (Weick 1989, p. 1) Consistent with Weick���s enjoinder above, our efforts in this paper originate in the observation that although the validation process is well documented in our field���s discussions of theory and method, development of the discovery process is remarkably underdeveloped. This is a critical oversight in light of increasing awareness that it is the discovery process that enables us to see empirical conundrums and turn toward them to mobilize perhaps our most interesting theorizing (Alvesson and Karreman 2007, Bailyn 1977, Czarniawska 1999, Locke et al. 2004, Van Maanen et al. 2007, Weick 2007). We use Peirce���s (1976) concept of abduction as a starting point for developing a fuller and more explicit account of the theorizing process and the role of doubt in gener- ating new ideas. Our specific contribution relates to the important role of doubt in discovery. Similar to Van Maanen et al. (2007, p. 1149), we believe that the concept of abduction from the prag- matist, Charles Peirce, is ���perhaps the best answer we currently have to the problems of discovery ��� In addition to the long-accepted inferential forms of induc- tion and deduction, which describe the processes through which we derive generalizations from specific obser- vations and specific observations from generalizations, respectively, Peirce proposed abduction as necessary to indicate the inventive processes involved in inquiry. He argued, ���Deduction proves that something must be induction shows that something actually is opera- tive abduction merely suggests that something may be��� (Peirce 1931���1958 (CP) 5:171 emphasis in original).1 Our Peircian understanding of abduction is concerned with the generation of ideas. It is an ampliative and 907

Locke, Golden-Biddle, and Feldman: Perspective 908 Organization Science 19(6), pp. 907���918, �� 2008 INFORMS conjectural mode of inquiry through which we engender and entertain hunches, explanatory propositions, ideas, and theoretical elements. Increasingly, scholars in organizational studies focused on theorizing are reaching out to Charles Sanders Peirce���s work on abduction to examine discovery (Alvesson and Skoldberg 2000, Czarniawska 1999, Hansen 2007, Van de Ven 2007, Weick 2005). Seeing abduction as comprising the conjectural or suppositional in the the- orizing process, these authors highlight the role of sur- prise and anomalies in provoking us to see and form new ideas. For example, Czarniawska (1999) envisions abduction in research as much like detective processes, involving the recognition of puzzling observations that enable us to discern and construct new plots. She empha- sizes that the process does not entirely conform to the scientific method, but instead involves a certain amount of mystery about how method produces the outcome. Weick (2005, p. 433) describes the abductive process as: ���clues [giving] rise to speculations, conjectures, and assessments of plausibility rather than to a search among known rules to see which one might best fit the facts.��� Hansen (2007) identifies the process as embodied or sen- sory in nature, relating to aesthetics and requiring reflex- ivity in challenging one���s previously held conceptions. Van de Ven (2007) describes the process as commencing with an anomaly or surprise that motivates researchers to generate explanations. Alvesson and Karreman (2007, p. 1266) incorporate the notion of breakdown through which mystery is generated to highlight the ���the unan- ticipated and unexpected.��� In this paper, we extend existing scholarship highlight- ing abduction���s role in theorizing new ideas by explicat- ing the role that the living sensation of doubt plays in energizing and enhancing the quality of abductive work. Doubt is the engine of abduction. The living state of doubt drives and energizes us to generate possibilities, try them out, modify, transform, or abandon them, try again, and so on, until new concepts or patterns are gen- erated that productively satisfy our doubt. From this per- spective, doubt is an essential, not aberrant, part of the research process: The question is not whether, but how, to engage doubt. Although Peirce indicated the importance of doubt within abductive reasoning, he did not unpack how an understanding of doubt could enhance the experience and quality of theorizing. Focusing here on the role of doubt in abduction, we can ask: How might doubt be cultivated? In articulating this question, we envision the ���eureka��� moment when a productive abduction occurs as a generative domain potentially open to those who cultivate their ability to engage and use doubt in the the- orizing process rather than as the exclusive domain of the brilliant or fortuitous. To unpack the significance of doubt for our theorizing efforts, we draw on Peirce to articulate the relationship between doubt, belief, and abduction in the everyday imaginative work central to theorizing. We then explore possibilities for making engagement with doubt more generative in the research process, and offer three strate- gic principles to assist these efforts. We end with a discussion of how the scholarly community shapes the enactment of the cycle of belief, doubt, and abduction. Doubt, Belief, and Abduction Within Peirce���s pragmatism, inquiry is defined as the activity of resolving genuine doubt in order to arrive at stable beliefs (Burks 1946). Framing inquiry through the articulation of belief, doubt, and experience, Peirce emphasizes that in all of our dealings through the course of our lives, all we have are ourselves, our beliefs, and our doubts interacting with our experience in the world (Chiasson 2001, 2007). Inquiry is initiated when, rela- tive to our beliefs, some positive impingement or sur- prise generates doubt. Then, doubt���experienced as not knowing���motivates a search for understanding. Living doubt is necessary to energize inquiry. Abduction is one form of reasoning (along with induc- tion and deduction) comprising the living process of inquiry. Abduction is consequential because, among the forms of reasoning available to us, it alone originates possible explanations. It is the ���only��� operation that ���introduces any new idea��� (CP 5:171) and, therefore, the way in which ���all the ideas of science come to it��� (CP 5:145). Thus, doubt engenders the potential of the- orizing creatively by motivating abduction���s search for possible explanations to an experienced anomaly. Because the words doubt and belief are somewhat awkward in everyday language and, as Peirce comments, as ���commonly employed [they] relate to religious or other grave discussions,��� it is useful to specify his use of these terms for inquiry. Peirce indicates (CP 5:394) that he uses ���doubt��� ���to designate the starting of any question, no matter how small or great,��� and ���belief��� ���to designate the resolution of it.��� Beliefs, as doubts which have been resolved, are the habits of interpretation and action ready for use, and in use, in our transactions with the world. As habitual and received, they represent con- tinuance and are the steady state of our everyday under- standing, living, and working we engage the world with habit-laden ways of apprehending that are developed in the course of our lives. Doubts, on the other hand, aris- ing when that continuance is interrupted, represent a potential inadequacy in these habitual ways of under- standing and acting. Doubt is the ���privation��� of habits. As ���privation,��� doubt represents a ���condition of erratic activity��� (CP 5:417) its irritation excites the ���action of thought��� that only ceases when ���belief is attained��� (CP 5:394), when the questioning is resolved. The irritation of doubt provides an opportunity for abduction to generate inventive solutions, new ideas,