MIS 650 Project Seminar

1. MIS 650Project Seminar Qualitative Methods II Case Study Methods MIS 650 Case Studies

2. Imaginings about this or other external or internal worlds Basis of Qualitative Methods Comments or interpretations or translations of this or other worlds Positivism assumes the world as an objective reality to be discovered, measured and thus understood. Actual Events Interpretivism assumes the world is socially (or otherwise) constructed and this must be understood first and only later measured and discovered MIS 650 Case Studies

3. Case Studies • The consistent, theory-driven, multi-faceted and multi-method observation of a small set of well-defined situations, with the object of describing in consistent terms a set of events pertinent to the theory arising from the situation • NOT a poor survey • NOT a mere narrative or set of anecdotes • Emphasis is on understanding, not proof. MIS 650 Case Studies

4. Typology of Case Studies • Intrinsic: The case itself is of interest, resembling therapy or consulting • Instrumental: The case is used to further understanding of something else. MIS 650 Case Studies

5. Case Study Reasoning Often, especially when just starting to think about a phenomenon, we want examples to talk about and to argue over. A case study provides an in-depth description of actors, situations, and outcomes to enable interested people to locate phenomena, talk about them, and create ideas about what is going on and why. MIS 650 Case Studies

6. Self- Reflection/ Awareness Context The Case Another Case Time MIS 650 Case Studies

7. General understanding of a phenomenon prior to explaining it Understanding the context within which the phenomenon is Naming the players and the stakeholders Creating theories Determining cause and effect Determining a gener-alizable characteristics for a system, user group or application Proving theories Value of a Case StudyUsed for Not Used for MIS 650 Case Studies

8. Relevant Situations for Different Research Strategies (Yin, 1994) Case study: A how or why question is being asked about a contemporary set of events over which the investigator has little or no control MIS 650 Case Studies

9. More Definitions from Yin (1994) • ... an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-lifecontext, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident. • ... copes with the situation in which there will be many more variables of interest than data points and as one result it relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulating fashion and it also benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis. MIS 650 Case Studies

10. Case Study Method • Find likely sites where what you want to observe appears to be happening • Observe or record events that are of interest • Try to find out what drivers exist for these events and what these events drive • Use multiple methods • Remember goal is understanding MIS 650 Case Studies

11. Case Study Design Components Why, how • The study’s questions • Its propositions • Its units of analysis • The logic linking the propositions • The criteria for interpreting the findings Hypotheses* The “Case” Patterns, Theory Critical Awareness MIS 650 Case Studies

12. Making Inferences Note: Case studies can be used to “disprove” a theory through counterexample; thus if there are competing explanations, the one left “not refuted” is by implication “supported”. Theory Rival Theory Policy Implication Rival Policy Implication SURVEY population characteristic CASE STUDY findings EXPERIMENT findings sample Case selection Subject selection MIS 650 Case Studies

13. Measures Case Study Tactics Eliminat’g spurious causes How to Gen- eral-ize Repeatability MIS 650 Case Studies

14. Case Study Site Criteria • Case should be an example of something but doesn’t have to be critical • Multiple cases are best, to contrast. • Does case allow for a variety of events? • Does case allow for complete observation? • Is description thick? • Is context accessible and capturable? MIS 650 Case Studies

15. Selecting Multiple Sites • There is no possibility of representativeness of individual cases; you should strive for a range of cases. • Select initial case, generally on what you can learn. This is limited by accessibility, usefulness of site, your own time. • Select successive sites based on contrast especially where you suspect your own influence. • Criterion is learning. This correlates with interestingness, too. MIS 650 Case Studies

16. The Research Question • The question will change during the research: Topical question: What do users of IT in the third world value most about IT? Foreshadowed problem: People seem to be impressed by communication abilities, but most of the uses are actually mundane accounting and computation Evolved issue pursued: What is the extent of the tension between the providers, who cater to business processing markets, and users, who want to contact one another? Assertion: Third-world users see IT as yet another cultural tool to maintain communities, while IT providers see it as an end in itself. MIS 650 Case Studies

17. Data, Data Handling Stable, unobtrusive, exact, broad, but maybe biased or inaccessible Targeted, insightful, potentially biased, inac- curate & “reflexive” Realism, real time, in- sightful, but time-con- suming, selective, po- tentially contaminable Culturally and technically insightful, but highly selective and potentially unavailable INPUTS OUTPUT: Study Data Base Notes: Documents: Tabular Materials: Narratives: Documentation Archives Interviews Observations Part-Obsv’n Physical artefacts MIS 650 Case Studies

18. Analysis Techniques The accumulation of events, often coded, into larger sets of related items. The categories themselves are of interest and how they relate comes out of the aggregation method.“Translation” of individual events without comparison to other events in order to put a label of meaning onto events. Examination of sequences of events for common patterns of a syntactic nature (x follows y; x requires y; x precludes y) • Categorical Aggregation • Direct Interpretation • Patterning MIS 650 Case Studies

19. Report Outline MIS 650 Case Studies

20. Case Study Example I A masters student explored the generation of knowledge in his organization around a series of products his firm introduced. He interviewed in a “snowball” fashion and also examined memos and electronic documents concerning the introduction of the products. A questionnaire was used to collect data on how far knowledge was disseminated in each campaign. MIS 650 Case Studies

21. Case Study Example (Cont’d.) The researcher’s goal was to describe as manydifferent situations in which knowledge was generated as possible. In addition, he wanted to be able to describe the context as “thickly” as he could so that he could understand under what circumstances knowledge was being generated and what IS had to do with it. He also studied printed records, memoranda of meetings, and policy documents. MIS 650 Case Studies

22. Case Study Example II Your instructor is interested in the role of the application steward in IS implementation. A number (4) of companies in the auto industry are contacted. Two are large, two are small. Two have highly structured SDLCs, two do not. The two large ones are OEMs, the other two are tier 1 and 2 suppliers. MIS 650 Case Studies

23. Case Study Example (Cont’d.) The researcher will lead a team of interviewers who will gather descriptions of the experiences of application stewards and the IT people they work with. Data will consist of descriptions of activities and challenges as well as solutions. Application stewards will describe their jobs from their points of view. Corresponding IT viewpoints will be collected, along with upper management expectations. MIS 650 Case Studies

24. Case Study Example (Cont’d.) The researcher’s goal is to describe as manydifferent situations in which application stewards work as possible. In addition, he wants to be able to describe the context as “thickly” as he could so that he could understand under what circumstances stewards work and how they perform their work. He will also study printed records, memoranda of meetings, and policy documents. MIS 650 Case Studies

25. Dept. of Information Systems Doctoral Program in IS & ND Case Study: References Yin, R. K. Case Study Research, Design and Methods, 2nd Ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1994 Stake, R. E. The Art of Case Study Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995. Benbasat, I., Goldstein, D. and M. Mead. “The Case Research Strategy in Studies of Information Systems,” MIS Quarterly 11 (3): 369-386, 1987. Earl, M. “Experiences in Strategic Information Systems Planning,” MIS Quarterly 17(1): 1-24, 1993. Kaplan, B. and D. Duchon. “Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Information Systems Research: A Case Study,” MIS Quarterly 13(1): 33-52, 1989. MIS 650 Case Studies

26. Case Study Diagnostic You are interested in the use of a component-based estimation technique for software production time estimation. Having located a company in Detroit, you prepare to do a case study of a firm moving to this technique. Your study consists of two different aspects: First, you interview software engineers who are using the technique and ask them MIS 650 Case Studies

27. Case Study Diagnostic, Cont’d questions about their estimation process, and how they use the new technique. Second, you speak with their managers and ask them questions about who is using the technique best, how well, and so forth. Another activity is to collect data about software engineering expenses, including labour costs, before and after changeover. MIS 650 Case Studies

28. Case Study Diagnostic, Cont’d It turns out only three SEs are actually using the technique and you can interview only one of them. Furthermore, you aren’t allowed access to expense figures, as these are confidential. Most managers, it turns out, don’t know how productive their SEs are. Are there going to be any problems? MIS 650 Case Studies

29. The Problem of the Unit of Analysis • Research involves five development projects in four countries, with 200 affected individuals, seventeen computer systems. What is the unit of analysis? Answer: the project. N=5. MIS 650 Case Studies

30. The Problem of Data Sampling • Problem: What to do with documentary data in a case study? Why is this a problem? In quantitative research, one would have to randomly sample data sources; most documentary data “found” is not randomly sampled. In qualitative research, data are selectively sampled, generally sequentially, as the data are analysed. MIS 650 Case Studies

31. The Problem of Data Sampling: Example • In a series of case studies on the use of IT in NPOs, a researcher R finds that in addition to 8-10 interviews per site, R also has collected a series of documents. These include memos, policy documents, minutes of meetings, and position papers. How should R treat the documents? Should R • Do a content analysis of all the documents? • Search for statements supporting his hypotheses or those he is building? • Do something else consistent with qualitative methods? MIS 650 Case Studies

32. The Problem of Data Sampling: One Solution: “Interviewing the data” Part 1 1. Array all the material by unit (page, section, paragraph, sentence, etc.) 2. Randomly select a proportion of the corpus (every nth, for example) 3. These are treated as “responses” Rationale: printed data are constructed for a purpose dissimilar to the purposes of your interviewees’ constructions, which are in response to your stimuli. MIS 650 Case Studies

33. The Problem of Data Sampling: “Interviewing the Data”, Part 2 4. Material are then “reverse engineered” to find out what question you might have asked to get this as a response. Note structure of questions 5. These “institutional responses” represent an additional “respondent” whose agenda is well known (from inferred purpose of data corpus” 6. The “questions” (and their structure) as well as the “responses” are additional data MIS 650 Case Studies