The Gentle Art of Retroduction: Critical Realism, Cultural Political Economy and Critical Grounded Theory

Belfrage, Claes; Hauf, Felix

doi:10.1177/0170840616663239

Cited by 211 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(39 reference statements)

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“…Having gained prominence over the last 30 years, CR as a philosophical position originated in natural science and has been increasingly applied in various fields of social science (Blundel 2007;Easton 2010). In management studies, it has been used to explore competing theories and to explain complex social events in the fields of information systems and organisation studies (Delbridge and Edwards 2013;Volkoff and Strong 2013;Belfrage and Hauf 2017). It has also been increasingly adopted by entrepreneurship scholars (Martin and Wilson 2014;Kitching, Hart, and Wilson 2015; Lee and Jones 2015; Ramoglou and Tsang 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methodological implications of critical realism for entrepreneurship research

2018

Journal of Critical Realism

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Few papers have offered clear guidance for the application of CR to empirical studies, particularly in the research field of entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is to critically review how the methodological principles used to conduct CR-based research can be applied in empirical studies and to develop a critical realist case study research design to guide empirical work in entrepreneurship. Specifically, I examine the core ontological assumptions and methodological implications of CR, and illustrate how these shape our logic of inference in research methodology known as retroduction. I demonstrate the value of a CR-informed approach in empirical studies by drawing on a qualitative case study that explains the reality of entrepreneurial opportunities. My inclusion of the three domains of reality and various data analysis techniques within the process of conceptual abstraction and retroduction contributes a distinctive methodological development in this field, which illustrates how CR can work in an applied setting to explain competing theories. I argue that such a research design enables us to conduct empirical studies and provide comprehensive causal explanations of complex social events.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methodological implications of critical realism for entrepreneurship research

2018

Journal of Critical Realism

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“…Interviewees were split between a majority who firmly adhered to the dogma of evidence-based health policy-making, and a few public health policy-makers and advocates who took a critical stance vis-à-vis evidence-based policy-making. This article's research question developed as a result of grounded conceptualization (Belfrage and Hauf, 2017). That means it departed from an initial provisional conceptualization of an issue, which was later modified and re-theorized as a result of fieldwork.…”

Section: Methodological Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The EC context illustrates these tensions particularly well because of both its 'technocratic' nature and its institutional neoliberal bias. The research question resulting from this 'retroductive' reflection process (Belfrage and Hauf, 2017) can be articulated as follows: In the EC, how is the dominant meaning of evidence related to neoliberal institutional dimensions, and how does that undermine a normatively meaningful HiAP?…”

Section: Methodological Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence and Power in EU Governance of Health Promotion: Discursive Obstacles to a “Health in All Policies” Approach

Godziewski

2020

J of Common Market Studies

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This article explores the relation between the meaning of what constitutes ‘evidence’ in the European Commission (EC) and the Health in All Policies (HiAP) concept. Since the 2006 Finnish EU presidency, HiAP is regularly referred to by the Commission, but has not yet been implemented as an overarching political vision. While there is a growing literature on technical implementation of HiAP, little work has delved into the political obstacles to HiAP. This article explores three ways in which the dominant meaning of ‘evidence’ in the EC reinforces neoliberal institutional characteristics in a way that undermines HiAP: The problematization of health reinforces constitutional asymmetry; the definition of ‘EU added value’ hampers positive integration; and the politicization of evidence strengthens the Better Regulation meta‐regulatory agenda. The article suggests that the meaning of evidence in the EC reinforces neoliberal rationality present at institutional level, and calls for more dialogue across public health ontologies.

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“…Data analysis represents a key stage of research within a critical realist framing. The decision was made to draw techniques for data analysis from what has been termed critical grounded theory (Oliver, ; Belfrage & Hauf, ). Indeed, the combination of grounded theory with critical realism offers not only a means to describe social events, but also an approach to developing new knowledge about social reality through abduction and retroduction reasoning to find causal explanations about a phenomenon for theory building.…”

Section: Methodology To Support a Search For Causal Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The organisational impact of undertaking a professional doctorate: Forming critical leaders

Lundgren‐Resenterra

Kahn

2019

British Educational Res J

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Research on the impact of professional doctorates on students and their organisations has reported contested outcomes. We undertook a study to develop a causal explanation of how organisational change may, or may not, result from participation in a Doctor of Education programme (EdD). Drawing on critical realist perspectives, the research found that all the doctoral students shared professional concerns with their work colleagues. In some cases, however, this sharing fostered social relations that supported both collective meta-reflexivity and a performative collective reflexivity, and that resulted in organisational change. Variation in the students' impact on their organisations was further connected to their organisational roles, and to the extent to which their agency aligned with organisational agendas or other external regulatory and normative systems. Strictly limited, or no, organisational change was, however, evident where collective reflexivity was seen to be restricted or to involve contestation. The article concludes that there is significant value to gain by conceiving learning on a professional doctorate not simply in terms of personal growth, but also in terms of mastering a discourse that crosses both research and professional practice and developing the capacity to draw others into that discourse in an organisationally relevant and yet critical fashion.

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The Gentle Art of Retroduction: Critical Realism, Cultural Political Economy and Critical Grounded Theory

Cited by 211 publications

References 40 publications

Methodological implications of critical realism for entrepreneurship research

Methodological implications of critical realism for entrepreneurship research

Evidence and Power in EU Governance of Health Promotion: Discursive Obstacles to a “Health in All Policies” Approach

The organisational impact of undertaking a professional doctorate: Forming critical leaders

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