Discovery as abductive mechanism for reorienting habits within organizational change

Abstract

Process studies of organizational and strategic change have drawn attention to the dynamics that generate such change, but we still know little about how discovery unfolds within change. A field study of efforts to create a new system for delivering inpatient medical care revealed that surprises and discoveries, and constructively oriented responses to them, occurred continuously throughout organizational change, not merely at the outset. Seeking to understand this empirical puzzle, I drew on the concept of abduction from pragmatism and organizational studies. This study makes two contributions to theory about the relation between discovery and change. First, I develop a framework that explicates the central role of discovery as an abductive mechanism that enables participants to reorient prevailing habits. Analyses reveal discovery to operate through what I call abduction sequences, or loosely connected and overlapping episodes of creative social activity. Three key motors and their attendant feelings drive discovery via abduction sequences: surprise, doubt and inquiry. Second, I provide a methodology for use in future research on discovery. Specifically, I propose abduction sequences as a useful analytic means for examining discovery within change and other inquiry processes, such as innovation and learning that generate fundamentally new ways of working.