Discovery, Validation, and Live Coding

Some time ago, Weick (1989) argued that elaboration of the theorizing process in organization studies and management requires us to move away from a singular preoccupation with validation because it provides a narrow and incomplete perspective on how new theoretical insights are developed. In the meantime, committed to broadening understanding of method and supporting the development of theorizing capability, a number of scholars have focused attention on discovery (e.g. Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2007; Czarniawska, 1999; Locke, Golden-Biddle, & Feldman, 2008; Swedberg, 2012; Weick 2005), underscoring the importance in the theorizing process of breakdowns and anomalies (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2007; Van de Ven, 2007), ongoing speculation and conjecture (Weick, 2005), and the living continuing experience of doubt (Locke, Golden-Biddle, & Feldman, 2008). In this chapter, we further elaborate the theorizing process by reconnecting validation and discovery. We use coding as an example and show how the process of coding is different when researchers engage validation and discovery as mutually constituted rather than independent approaches to research.