Critical Realism and the Development of Management Theory

This chapter explores the development of management theory from the point of view of critical realist scholarship. It starts by considering the nature of management theory and different approaches to theory development: induction, deduction, and abduction. We argue that abductive approaches are implicitly realist, even if researchers using an abductive approach to theory development are not explicit about this. The chapter then introduces critical realism, as a specific approach to abduction, before then considering how critical realism can be used as a tool for the development and integration of management theories.