Ways of establishing rigour in the Abductive Research Strategy (ARS)

ABSTRACT

This article examines how rigour is achieved in the Abductive Research Strategy (ARS). It begins with a review of some of the arguments about objectivity and rigour in social sciences, which shows that quantitative and qualitative researchers hold different meanings of objectivity and therefore different ways of achieving rigour in their research. ARS as a qualitative methodology is then described and, using a study of the experience of work of life insurance sales workers in the state of Penang, rigour in the ARS is illustrated. Three ways of establishing rigour in ARS are stated and expounded. While two of them are from the traditions of doing qualitative research, the third is from the logic of abduction.

KEYWORDS:

• Rigour
• objectivity
• authenticity
• abduction
• work

Acknowledgement

I am indebted to Dr Norman Blaikie for reading this paper and giving me many useful comments and suggestions, which have further improved the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Timmermans and Tavory’s (2012) abductive method of theory construction is based on Peirce’s concept of abduction. However, because Peirce used the concepts of ‘abduction’, ‘retroduction’ and ‘hypothesis’ interchangeably and his abduction is akin to Bhasker’s logic of retroduction, a process used to invent or generate new theories (see Blaikie, 1993, pp. 163–176, 2019) that it is appropriate to keep Timmermans and Tavory’s abduction as being ‘retroduction’ and to reserve ‘abduction’ for ARS.

Additional information

Funding

The follow-up research on the typologies is funded by Universiti Sains Malaysia under the short-term grant.

Notes on contributors

Beng Kok Ong

Beng Kok Ong PhD, is senior lecturer in sociology, in the School of Social Sciences at Universiti Sains Malaysia, in which he teaches courses of qualitative research methods and sociology of everyday life to undergraduate students. He writes and conducts research on the sociology of work, and qualitative methodology, in particular, abductive methodology.