Abductive Coding: Theory Building and Qualitative (Re)Analysis

Qualitative secondary analysis has generated heated debate regarding the epistemology of qualitative research. We argue that shifting to an abductive approach provides a fruitful avenue for analysts who are oriented towards theory-building. However, concrete implementation abduction remains underdeveloped—especially coding. address this key gap by outlining set tactics can be applied analysis. Our applies Timmermans and Tavory's ( Tavory 2012 ; 2014 ) three stages in steps (secondary) analysis: Generating Abductive Codebook, Data Reduction through Code Equations, In-Depth Analysis. A contribution our article is development “code equations”—defined as combination codes operationalize phenomena span individual codes. equations important resource other approaches leverage data build theory.