B 203: Qualitative Research Techniques Asif Mohammad Shahan

Beachside Comprehensive: A Case Study of Secondary Schooling The Administrative Behavior of Federal Bureau Chiefs Tally’s Corner In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies Executive Politics in Washington The Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants in Western Europe

The history of case study research is marked by periods of intense use and periods of disuse. The earliest use of this form of research can be traced to Europe, predominantly to France. The methodology in the United States was most closely associated with The University of Chicago Department of Sociology. From the early 1900's until 1935, The Chicago School was preeminent in the field and the source of a great deal of the literature.

Case Study Research The essence of a case study, the central tendency among all types of case study is that it tries to illuminate a decision or set of decisions: why they were taken, how they were implemented, and with what result.

Case studies can be:  Exploratory (initial analysis of a phenomenon)  Explanatory (why)  Descriptive (full portrayal) (Yin, 1994) Case studies can be used to:  Provide description  Test theory  Generate theory (Eisenhardt, 1989).

What is a Case? Almost everything can serve as a case A phenomenon of some sort occurring in a bounded context May be an individual, a role, a small group, an organization, a community or a nation Can be a decision, a policy, a process, an incident, event of some sort

What is a Case? Brewer and Hunter list six types of units-  Individuals  Attributes of individuals  Actions and interactions  Residues and artefacts of behavior  Settings, incidents and events  Collectivities

Due to different types of cases, case study can also be of different types-  Intrinsic Case Study  Instrumental Case Study  Collective Case Study

Various Definitions of Case Study “A study of bounded system, emphasizing the unity and wholeness of that system, but confining the attention to those aspects that are relevant to the research problem at a time” A case study is an empirical inquiry that-  Investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real life context, when  The boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident, and in which  Multiple sources of evidence are used

“A method of studying social phenomena through the analysis of an individual case. The case may be a person, group, an episode, a process, a community, a society, or any other unit of social life. The approach rests on the assumption that the case being studied is typical of cases of a certain type, so that through intensive analysis generalizations may be made which will be applicable to other cases of the same type” (Adler & Adler, 1994).

Four Characteristics of Case Studies The case is a bounded system The case is a case of something There is an explicit attempt to preserve the wholeness, unity and integrity of the case Multiple sources of data and multiple data collection methods are used

Case Studies and Generalizability This study is based on one case, so how can we generalize? Conceptualizing Developing propositions Some studies do not want to generalize  Important, interesting case  Studying the negative case

Three levels of generalization  Generalization from sample to population  Analytic or theory connected generalization  Case-to-case transfer

Preparing a Case Study Be clear what the case is, including identification of its boundaries Be clear on the need for the study of the case and on the general purpose of the case Translate that general purpose into specific purpose and RQs Identify the overall strategy of the case Show what data will be collected Show how data will be analyzed