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1 Introduction

Aims and Audience

This book provides a comprehensive guide to the nature and use of case study research. It is designed primarily for students – final-year undergraduate students, master’s students and beginning doctoral students – who are learning about research methods and/or undertaking small-scale research projects of their own, and who might be interested in undertaking case study research. It will also be useful, therefore, to academics involved in instructing and/or supervising such students, who may not all be as familiar with case study research as they might like to be.

The focus of the book is primarily on the social sciences, as this is both the subject area with which I am most familiar, and also the area in which case study is most commonly employed as a research design. However, as case study is widely used in many disciplines, the book also explores that varied usage, so it should be useful beyond the social sciences as well.

The book has been written in what you will hopefully find to be an accessible and relatively jargon-free style. In part this has been a deliberate strategy, as most things can be explained fairly simply and there is generally no need to use obscure language. In part it is also because this is the only way I know how to write. There is, though, some specialist language involved in case study and related research, so this has been used and explained as necessary.

The book takes as its central position that case studies are small-scale research with meaning. In other words, while it is clear that case studies are, by definition, limited or bounded in their scope, they nevertheless aim to produce valuable data and analyses which are of broader interest and usefulness. It is in this way that they have the potential to make significant contributions to our understanding.

We don’t, of course, all have the time, funding and access to undertake larger-scale research. However, much can be achieved through smaller-scale research projects such as case studies. The trick, then, is to make the small-scale research that we undertake both useful and meaningful. This book aims to assist you in doing that.

The Contents of the Book

In the succeeding chapters, you will find discussion of, and answers to, the following questions:

 What are case studies (see Chapter 2)?

 What kinds of case study are there (see Chapter 2)?

 How does case study compare to other research designs (see Chapters 3 and 6)?

 What are the advantages and disadvantages of case study (see Chapter 3)?

 How can case study research be meaningful and valuable (see Chapter 4)?

 How are case studies used in different disciplines (see Chapter 5)?

 How are case studies used in combination with other research designs (see Chapter 6)?

 How can I access and use published case study research (see Chapter 7)?

 How do I carry out a case study (see Chapters 8 and 9)?

 What is the future for case study research (see Chapter 10)?

Each chapter begins with an outline of its contents, and ends with a summary of the main points made and a list of key readings. Boxes are used in some chapters to present examples or summarise material, and plentiful quotations from the extensive literature on case study research are provided.

One key feature of the book is its extensive discussion of selective case study publications: this is a particular feature of Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7. This has been done to better exemplify the kinds of research that case study designs have been used for, to show their potential, and to illustrate the kinds of conclusions that such research can come up with.

I hope you find the book both enjoyable and useful.