Five Misunderstandings about Case-Study Research

Abstract

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

La versión española de este artículo se puede encontrar en: http://www.ssrn.com/abstract=2278291

Den danske version af denne artikel kan findes på: http://www.ssrn.com/abstract=2278229

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Keywords: case study, case selection, critical cases, validity in case studies