Abstract
Experimental research practices encouraging scientific control and explicit measurement have been criticized for dealing with management and organizational dynamics as if they were hypothetical, static, and unreal. There have been a number of calls for a more qualitative and relevant approach which provides more in-depth knowledge of cases. Certain principles and practices have been offered to assist researchers, yet there has been much debate on their application. Some researchers have suggested case study principles supporting intensive case analysis while others have indicated the importance of comparisons. This paper first provides a listing of common case study approaches, each of which is used for different purposes. Some of these approaches are used for descriptive research, some for encouraging discovery, and others for establishing proof. The identification of principles for a type of case study evolve out of the type of knowledge and information the researcher is seeking to gather. Narratives, explanatory, and interpretative cases tend to use historical information focused around questions, criteria, a sequence of occurrence, or testimonials. Tabulations, comparative studies, and diagnostic and experimental action research cases seem to be more complex in the variety of data they summarize. Survey cases stand on their own as researchers use them much like they are gathering survey data from a large sample. This paper suggests that different types of case studies need to be judged by unique principles or assumptions.
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Cunningham, J.B. Case study principles for different types of cases. Quality & Quantity 31, 401–423 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1004254420302
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1004254420302