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Finally, let us return to the question of whether case studies are so endemic and ill-defined that every piece of research may be regarded as a case study, or, at least, as a multiple case study. Earlier in this chapter, Punch (2005, p. 144) was quoted as remarking that ‘almost anything can serve as a case’. He is not alone in expressing this view. Thus, Stake, one of the key contemporary proponents of case study research, while noting that ‘Custom has it that not everything is a case’ (1995, p. 2; 2005, p. 444), also recognised that ‘Here and there, researchers will call anything they please a case study’ (2005, p. 445).

If you spend a little time searching an academic library catalogue or a bibliographic database, it will soon become apparent that the words ‘case study’ are very widely used in the titles of academic articles, monographs, reports and theses. These words crop up particularly frequently in sub-titles, where, having indicated what the focus of the study is, it is then described as a ‘case study’ of something or other (this issue is discussed further in the section on Writing on Case Study in Chapter 7).

This rather loose usage suggests two things. First, that, as Punch and Stake have noted, everything could be regarded as a case. Second, that case study is quite often adopted or identified as the research design when the researcher can think of no clearer or perhaps stronger way of describing it; calling a piece of research a case study and adding a brief reference to the case study literature may then seem to add credibility.

It is critically important, therefore, that we exercise care and discretion in using the label ‘case study’. Overuse encourages disregard. We need to restrict the use of the term to research which explicitly employs a case study design and criticise those who use it too loosely. While, in one sense, everything is a case (i.e. all individual items may be seen as worthy of analysis), all research is not case study research.