Case Study as a Methodological Approach

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

Case study is used in gathering scientific data in different disciplines, in clinical psychology for scientific and therapeutic purposes, as educational tools for understanding pedagogic processes, and as strategies for making sense of sociological and political outcomes, among others. In its early stages the object of case study in the qualitative tradition involved a focus on one company or the stages of an individual. For instance, psychoanalysis set out to understand the inner dynamics of individuals, and assumed that people's mental structures were similar from case to case; in life-cycle analyses of a single company, its inner dynamics of development [Page 67]were seen as similar to other organizations. The gathered pieces of information constitute qualitative data, which are then interpreted. Qualitative data can be gathered not only as texts but also as pictures or through participatory observation, and a range of other methods. Interviews, for example, especially thematic interviews, are the most common data gathering method for a case study. Using several different methods also enables triangulation, that is, the information received from different data can be compared, which, according to some researchers, like David Silverman, increases validity. Kathleen Eisenhardt argues that it is also possible to use quantitative data alongside qualitative data in case studies. Here research strategies can include experimental research, quantitative survey study, qualitative field study, and participatory observation. Case study is a special research strategy that can bring various quantitative and qualitative methods together.

Case study is often used in the field of business economics as well as in other disciplines. Among them are administration sciences and technical sciences, where the research objects frequently include independent organizational entities, such as companies and other administrative organizations. The studied cases are unique by nature. For example, a company as a business unit forms a natural economic and judicial entity for a case study to examine, and it is relevant to study the organizational, business, and administrative characteristics within the framework of the unit. Public administration organizations are also relevant targets for case study. Organizational behavior, including individual and group behavior in an organization, as well as understanding and explaining it in some work communities, is so complex a task that sometimes only case study can offer an adequate foundation—see, for example, the work of Chris Clegg, Nigel Kemp, and Karen Legge. Case study has been described—in now-classic works by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, by Robert Yin, and others—as an independent methodical and methodological scientific approach.

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