There has been a growing interest amongst management scholars in conducting research on Grand Challenges. Despite recognizing that studying such highly complex and uncertain phenomena likely requires more unconventional approaches, there has been very little methodological guidance provided to interested scholars. Drawing upon our own Grand Challenge projects undertaken over the past decade, we put forward a methodological approach we term ‘abductive experimentation’. Such an approach is an action-oriented process of inquiry that cycles between generating ‘doubt’ and generating ‘belief’. More specifically, abductive experimentation iterates between induction, abduction, and deduction to both generate and reconcile ‘surprising’ findings and causal mechanisms. While we submit abductive experimentation as a methodological approach particularly well suited to the study of Grand Challenges, we believe that the process depicted also provides a general roadmap for scholars seeking to dismantle the artificial dualism between theory and practice.

管理学者对大挑战的研究越来越感兴趣。尽管认识到研究这种高度复杂和不确定的现象可能需要更多非常规的方法，但向感兴趣的学者提供的方法指导却很少。借鉴我们自己在过去十年中开展的“大挑战”项目，我们提出了一种我们称之为“溯因实验”的方法论方法。这种方法是一种以行动为导向的探究过程，在产生“怀疑”和产生“信念”之间循环。更具体地说，溯因实验在归纳、溯因和演绎之间反复进行，以产生和协调“令人惊讶的”发现和因果机制。