Case Study Research

5/14/2014
Manchester PhD Colloquium 2014
Case Study Research
Dr Chris Medlin, Business School
adelaide.edu.au
1874
These figures are
case study research!!
Categorization
Representation
Comparison
- But static
- I am interested in dynamics
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Introduction
• Case research overview and complexity
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Evidence
Process research
Network and Case study
Time and case method
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To those who attended – this is an edited version, which does not
follow my presentation.
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The usual view – but mostly misses dynamics
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Dubois & Gadde, 2002
• Weick (1969, p. 18) expresses the opinion that case studies are too
situation-specific and, therefore, not appropriate for generalization.
In the second edition of the same book, however, he concludes, with
reference to ‘noted investigators’, that case studies ‘‘are better tools
than first imagined’’ (Weick, 1979, p. 37).
• The reason for the revised attitude to case studies was an evolving
insight that ‘‘findings are unstable over time.’’
• Weick (1979, p. 37) recommends, in line with Cronbach (1975), that
researchers should ‘‘try harder to make interpretations specific to
situations.’’
• what was previously regarded as a problem was now recognized as
an opportunity.
• Learning from a particular case (conditioned by the environmental
context) should be considered a strength rather than a weakness.
The interaction between a phenomenon and its context is best
understood through in-depth case studies.
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Halinen and Törnroos (2005) JBR
• Case study defined as ‘‘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’’ (Yin 1989, p.23)
• ‘The case study is a research strategy which focuses on
understanding the dynamics present within single settings’’
(Eisenhardt 1989, p.534)
• ‘The intense observation made in case studies gives
opportunities to study different aspects and put these in
relation to each other, to put objects in relation to the
environment where they operate and use the abilities of
Verstehen of the researcher’’ (Valdelin, 1974)
• “Theory generation from case study evidence has been the
most discussed type of case research. Its basis can be found
from Glaser and Strauss (1967) and the ideas of later writers
(e.g., Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 1989; Miles and Huberman,
1994).” (H&T 2005, P.1287)
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Complexity
• ‘complex macroscopic collection’ of relatively similar and
partially connected micro-structures – formed in order to adapt
to the changing environment, and increase the system’s
survivability as a macrosystem.
• Complex systems are dynamic networks of interactions, and
their relationships are not aggregations of the individual static
entities. They are adaptive; in that the individual and collective
behavior mutate and self-organize corresponding to the changeinitiating micro-event or collection of events
•
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system
• Complexity is Now! And the multiple futures in the Now
(Luhmann 1979)
• How to unpack complexity? Time, past-present-future and flow
time (Medlin 2004, Halinen, Medlin and Törnroos 2012)
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Dubois & Gadde, 2002
The main objective of any research is to confront theory with the empirical world.
What we argue above is that in systematic combining this confrontation is more or
less continuous throughout the research process. How this process develops is
directed by another confrontation — between the evolving framework and the
evolving case. (how to change theoretical view as case research proceeds)
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Evidence ?? How to capture reality in flight?
Text
Activity
Process
Event
Categories
Time sequences, periods, phases, flow
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Analysis
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Grounded theory
Qualitative content analysis
Narrative analysis
Event and Process
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Pettigrew, A.M. (1997), "What is a
Processual Analysis?," Scandinavian Journal
of Management, 13 (4), 337-48
Page 338:
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Pettigrew, A.M. (1997), "What is a
Processual Analysis?," Scandinavian Journal
of Management, 13 (4), 337-48
Page 338:
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Pettigrew, A.M. (1997), "What is a
Processual Analysis?," Scandinavian Journal
of Management, 13 (4), 337-48
Page 338:
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Two worlds
QUALITATIVE
• Understand
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Attribute category, pattern
Quality
Scrutinize
Credibility
Transferability
Confirmability
QUANTITATIVE
• Explain
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Measure on a scale
Quantity
Observe
Reliability
Generalizability
Validity
• (Lincoln and Guba 1985)
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Lincoln and Guba (1985) claim that
qualitative research should be able to show:
• Credibility - that findings are found to be close
to reality.
• Transferability - being able to show that results
are applicable in other similar type of
situations.
• Dependability - the consistency of the findings
and its “thickness”.
• Confirmability - to show that results are not
biased on behalf of the researchers and that the
language of informants is accurately presented.
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Steps in Qualitative Research Process
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Acknowledge social self
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Adopt a perspective
– Western individual, new world.
– Business network, processes
– Develop a conceptual model
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Design the study
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Collect and analyze data
– Interview key actors
– Record interviews
– Create time periods/phases of network change
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Interpret the data
– Processes lead to change of network
– Evidence contrary to conceptual model
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Inform others
– Published in Industrial Marketing
Management
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Halinen and Törnroos (2005) JBR
Four major challenges of case research for a network
researcher:
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1. Problem of network boundaries.
2. Problem of complexity.
3. Problem of time.
4. Problem of case comparison.
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Halinen, Medlin, and Törnroos, 2012, IMM
Special Issue - “Time and process in business network research”
• Covers conceptualizations of Time
• Three types of Process Research
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Grounded Theory
• Glaser and Strauss have different perspectives
• A priori concepts? (Kendall, Judy (1999), "Axial coding and
the grounded theory controversy,“)
• Open coding - In open coding, you focus primarily on the text
to define concepts and categories.
• The essence of axial coding is to identify some central
characteristic or phenomenon (the axis) around which
differences in properties or dimensions exist. Axial coding is
therefore a process of reassembling or disaggregating data in a
way that draws attention to the relationships between and
within categories. In axial coding, you are using your concepts
and categories while re-reading the text.
• (Corbin and Strauss 2008; Corbin and Strauss 1990; Glaser
and Strauss 1967; Heath and Cowley 2004; Kendall 1999;
McLoughlin and De Burca 1995; Strauss and Corbin 1990;
Woods et al. 2002)
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Foucault, Michel (1971), L'ordre du discours.
Paris: Gallimard. Page 58
• "History has long since abandoned its
attempts to understand events in terms of
cause and effect in the formless unity of some
great evolutionary process. ...; but it did this
not to rediscover structures that were prior,
alien and hostile to the event. It was rather to
establish the diverse, intersecting, often
divergent, but never autonomous series that
enable us to circumscribe the 'locus' of the
event, the margins of its unpredictability, the
conditions of its emergence."
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Halinen and Törnroos (2005) JBR
• Network processes are embedded in their context and can only be
studied within it.
• One has to decide how to obtain network change to be able to
analyze it and how to incorporate the concept of time into research.
• One of the key questions is which longitudinal (or process) method to
use in data collection.
• Layered processes.
• Context = boundaries
• Multiple contexts with layered
processes
• Environment – how to consider
beyond the boundary.
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Halinen and Törnroos (2005) JBR
Four major challenges of case research for a network
researcher:
• 1. Problem of network boundaries.
– “The network setting extends without limits through connected
relationships, making any network boundary arbitrary.” (H&T 2005)
– ‘‘the smaller the unit of analysis, the more one loses of the connectedness
that is the very essence of the network’’ (Easton, 1995, p. 417)
– ‘‘studying a large single network retains the connectedness ... but raises
very real issues of representativeness and restricts access to the majority
of methodologies that, in practice, demand replication’’ (Easton, 1995, p.
417)
• 2. Problem of complexity.
– Network embeddedness connotes an actor’s position in a network, its
relations and its dependence on spatial, social, political, technological
and market structures, for instance (Fletcher and Barrett, 2001; Halinen
and Tornroos, 1998).
– does it then make sense to study only one aspect of a network at a time to
master network complexity?
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Microposition is characterized by the role that the firm has for another firm and by its
importance for the other firm. This micro-view is mainly dyadic.
The macro-position, on the other hand, is more interesting from the network perspective. It is
characterized by (Johanson and Mattsson, 1988, p. 472) as:
1. The identity of the other firms with which the firm has direct relationships and indirect
relationships in the network;
2. The role of the firm in the network;
3. The importance of the firm in the network; and
4. The strength of relationships with the other firms
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Halinen and Törnroos (2005) JBR
Four major challenges of case research for a network researcher:
• 3. Problem of time.
– Easton (1995, p. 419) puts forth two main reasons for this. ‘‘The first is
that the unit of analysis is, by its very nature, dynamic and susceptible to
change. In addition, the explanatory power of industrial network
approach comes into play when this approach is used to explain the
changes that have occurred in particular networks.’’ It is thus evident
that change is an issue that is built into the industrial network approach.
– Requires “longitudinal methods and the tools of process research have to
be considered (see, e.g., Halinen and Tornroos, 1995; Pettigrew, 1997).”
– “To provide valid descriptions and explanations of network processes,
the time concept has to be incorporated consistently into the research at
all its domains: conceptual, methodological and substantive (Halinen,
1998).”
– “Networks are changing in relation to the value that they create and the
problems that they aim at solving over time. “
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Halinen and Törnroos (2005) JBR
Four major challenges of case research for a network researcher:
• 4. Problem of case comparisons.
– “In theory-generating research, the potential to make cross-case
comparisons is commonly viewed as important, if not even necessary
(see, e.g., Eisenhardt, 1989; Perry, 1998; Romano, 1989; Yin, 1989).
– “By comparing sites or cases, one can establish the range of generality of
a finding or explanation and, at the same time, pin down the conditions
under which that finding will occur (Miles and Huberman, 1994, p. 172)”
H&T finish with:
1. An illustrative case study example.
2. The steps for a case study method.
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Czarniawska, 2010, p. 69
• Narrative
• Emplotment (a term introduced by Hayden White 1973)
means introducing structure that allows making sense of
the events reported. Traditionally, it answers the
question: ‘Why?’ where, in a positivist view, the answer
should be formulated in terms of causal laws; in a
romantic view, in terms of motives; in post-positivist,
post-romantic discourse (Brown 1989), it assumes a
form of showing ‘How come?’ where laws of nature,
human intentions and random events form a hybrid
mixture.
• Emplotment:
Deconstruction  Re-construction in Theory of the case
material.
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