Case Study Research

1. Case Study Research Qualitative Methods in Social Research 2010-2011 Alice Mah

2. Outline • Introduction: what is a case study? • Case study research design • Contrasting theoretical views • Case study rationales and varieties • Research methods and process • Discussion: advantages and disadvantages • Case study research example • Conclusion and workshop discussion

3. What is a case study? 1/2 • A research frame or design • ‘…a strategy for doing research which involves an empirical investigation of a particular contemporary phenomenon within its real life context using multiple sources of evidence.’ (Yin 1994) • ‘… those research projects which attempt to explain holistically the dynamics of a certain historical period of a particular social unit.’ (Stoecker 1991)

4. What is a case study? 2/2 • Intensive vs. extensive • Holistic: attending to interrelationships • Contextual: • Internal context (eg. detailed analysis of internal social processes, Burawoy) • External context (eg. necessarily reified characterisation of external social forces, Burawoy)

5. Choose the case study method: • When a ‘how’ question is asked of a contemporary vs. historical phenomenon, in a situation in which the researcher has little control, and when the boundaries between the phenomenon and the context are not clearly evident (Yin 1994) • For producing ‘exemplars’: ‘Good social science is problem driven and not methodology driven in the sense that it employs those methods that for a given problematic, best help answer the research questions at hand.’ (Flyvberg, 2006, p 242)

6. Case study research design • Start with research questions or propositions • Define spatial and temporal boundaries around the case: the unit of analysis (an individual, a country’s economy, a community, an industry, a policy, a social group, an organisation): provisional • Construct validity, internal validity, external validity and reliability (Yin 1994)

7. Contrasting theoretical views of case studies 1/2 Diverse conceptions of case studies: • Positivist: only exploratory (‘method of last resort’ Goldthorpe) • Interpretivist: 1) sui generis (in its own right), 2) a basis for grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss) • Ethnomethodological: loci of generic phenomenon (claims to universality of ‘primordial practices’) • Critical realist: case studies are opportunities for explanatory theory development (Burawoy, Stoecker, Walton) • Post-modern: occasions for creative narratives

8. Contrasting theoretical views of case studies 2/2 • The role of theory • generating, testing, avoiding, elaborating • Wider implications beyond the case • The extended case method: extending out from the field (Burawoy, Zambian copper industry) • Challenge to the (positivist) notion that one cannot generalise from single cases (Flyvberg, 2006)

9. Case study rationales: single cases • Critical case: testing a well-formulated theory • Extreme or deviant case: unusual or problematic • Representative or typical case: everyday or commonplace situation (eg. Robert and Helen Lynd’s community study of Middletown, 1929) • Revelatory case: new sociology insights (eg. Whyte’s Street Corner Society, 1955) • Longitudinal: studying the same case over time. • Paradigmatic (Flyvberg, 1006): an exemplary, prototypical or metaphorical case that highlights more general characteristics of the society

10. Case study rationales: multiple cases • By definition, the unusual, critical and the revelatory case are likely to involve single cases, whereas exemplary, typical or paradigmatic might be multiple. • A substitute for the experimental techniques of the natural sciences (Ragin 1987) • Multiple case studies raise new questions: ‘replication’ design (Yin, 1994) • Literal replication: predicts similar results • Theoretical replication: predicts contrasting results but for anticipatable reasons • Necessity of a rich theoretical framework

11. Holistic vs. embedded case studies • Relevant to both single and multiple case studies • Holistic: a global approach with only one unit of analysis (eg. an organisation • Embedded or nested: more than one unit of analysis within a case (eg. the organisation as well as its employees, services, clients, programmes, etc.)

12. The role of comparison in and between cases • Within cases: nested or embedded cases • Consider internal divisions/tensions/conflicts, often reflected in differing accounts of what is going on ‘in’ the case • Between cases: (multiple case study rationales); also: representative/typical cases; paradigmatic cases; similarities and differences • Comparative method: contested approach

13. Case study methods • Usually draws on multiple sources of evidence • BUT may rely exclusively on one method • Commonly contrasted with quantitative surveys • BUT can involve mixed qualitative and quantitative methods • Common sources of data: • Interviews (narrative, life history, semi-structured or informal), participant observation (and other observations), documents, photographs, official records (including statistical information) • Triangulation of data

14. Research process • Data collection and analysis as a continuing and iterative process (Tony Elgar, 2009) • First impressions • Exploring and contextualising actors/informants’ perspectives • Identifying distinctive narratives and their contexts • Drawing out social processes • Tracing temporal sequences • Pursuing puzzles and anomalies • ‘Triangulation to test analyses’ • Feedback and revisits

15. Discussion: What are some of the advantages and disadvantages to case study research? • Discuss for 5 minutes with a partner, then share your ideas with the group.

16. Case study research: example • Landscapes and Legacies of Industrial Ruination (Mah, forthcoming, University of Toronto Press) • Case study design: theoretically driven, multiple site (3), exemplary/paradigmatic (Flyvberg), combination of typical and unique (Yin), drew up criteria for selection. • Iterative, mixed methods, spatial/social analysis, interviews & observations

20. Conclusion and discussion • Multiple theoretical views of case studies • Role of theory is important in research design • Case study rationales should be considered carefully prior to research • Many varieties of case studies (single, multiple, holistic, embedded, comparative) • Case study boundaries are fuzzy and difficult to define/maintain • Discussion: workshop (homework task)