Dissecting the Case Study Research: Stake and Merriam Approaches

Shreya Mishra

Birla Institute of Management Technology, e-mail: [email protected]

Mishra, S. (2021). Dissecting the Case Study Research: Stake and Merriam Approaches. In Dey, A. K. (Ed.), Case Method for Digital Natives: Teaching and Research (1st ed., pp. 265-293). Bloomsbury, India. ISBN: 978-93-54355-21-9

Abstract: In the first part of the article, two approaches to case study research were discussed, including that of Robert Yin and Kathleen Eisenhardt. The second part of the article starts by discussing Robert Stake and Sharan Merriam’s approaches to case study research. Further, the article provides an insider view of when manuscripts on case research face desk rejections, with the hope of save early case study researchers from committing such mistakes. The article shall finally conclude by making a case for using case study research in classrooms. In doing so, it will discuss how case study research may help students increase their analytical power and their capacity to dive deep into the problem at hand to make better decisions and find solutions.

Keywords: Case study research; desk rejection; constructivists; publishing; qualitative research design

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Introduction

The previous article was the first part of this two-part article that aims to provide a basic understanding of case study research by discussing the four school of thoughts on the methodology. The approaches of Robert Yin and Kathleen Eisenhardt, which have been developed from a positivist stance, were discussed in the same. Yin’s focus was on suggesting a structured process to use case study research so that the findings are valid and reliable. Eisenhardt, on similar lines, provides a blueprint to develop a parsimonious, testable and logically consistent theory from case study research.

This second part of the article will delve into the approach of Robert Stake and Sharan Merriam. Their stance to case study research is Interpretivist/Constructivist (Harrison et al., 2017; Yazan, 2015). Moreover, they advocate the methodology as a qualitative methodology and the term qualitative case study research is thus often found in their works.

Following the approaches, the article discusses when and why case study research gets rejected by journals. Further, since the book is focused on case study as a pedagogy, the article shall end with arguing that case study research can be used as a pedagogical tool to develop a research mindset within management education.

Interpretivist/Constructivist Approach

The interpretivist/constructivist case study researcher upholds the view that the knowledge is constructed and not discovered. Both Stake and Merriam hold this view and believe that reality is not an object that is to be found out there; rather it is constructed through the interactions between persons and their social words, hence it has multidimensional perspectives that the researcher aims to understand and build meaning to (Yazan, 2015). Keeping this view, the two approaches of Stake and Merriam are discussed hereafter.

Robert Stake’ Approach

As more and more qualitative researchers ventured into using case study, Robert Stake provided a detailed approach to the qualitative case study research. His book, The Art of Case Study Research (1995), describes his version of the methodology. Although his version emerged from the studies in education, it has been since used in various disciplines, including management. However, the examples in his book particularly revolve around educational settings. Moreover, his book focuses on single cases, and although he later dedicated an entire book on multiple case study, the information in this article will remain dedicated to his first book.

According to him:

A case study is expected to catch the complexity of a single case. A single leaf, even a single toothpick, has unique complexities-but rarely will be case enough to submit it to case study. We study a case when it itself is of very special interest. We look for the detail for interaction with its contexts. Case study is the study of the particularity and complexity of a single case, coming to understand its activity within important circumstances.?(Stake, 1995, p. xi)

It is evident in the given explanation that Stake’s approach to case study research has been different from Yin and Eisenhardt, as he particularly emphasises on the ‘case’ to be studied rather than its process and structure. To build on this stance, he further refines the scope of case study research, drawing from Louis Smith’s description of case being ‘a bounded system’, which he further elaborates as ‘drawing attention to it as an object rather than a process’ (Stake, 1995, p. 2).

In other words, it can be said that in Stake’s view, a researcher should be particularly focused on the specific ‘case’ (unit of inquiry as Yin puts it) that he wants to study. This perspective will get clearer in the coming sections of Stakes approach.

Type of Cases

As Stake goes on to describe what he means by qualitative case study research, he distinguishes between three types of cases Intrinsic, Instrumental, and Collective.

Intrinsic Cases

When a researcher is interested in a particular ‘case’ itself, then he may be doing an intrinsic case study research. In simple words, the researcher wishes to understand what is going on within that single case. This approach may be used when the case seems to be showing different characteristics within the same context. For instance, if one organisation in the aviation industry happens to be doing well during the pandemic while its competitors are not, then the researcher may want to understand why that particular organisation is not being affected by the pandemic. Hence, this may be seen as an intrinsic case, which is studied to understand just that one organisation. Stake explains intrinsic case as:

We are interested in it (the case), not because by studying it we learn about other cases or about some general problems, but because we need to learn about the particular case. We have intrinsic interest in the case, and we may call our work intrinsic case study.?(Stake, 1995, p. 3)

Instrumental Cases

Unlike intrinsic case study, an instrumental case study is used when the objective of the researcher is to understand a general phenomenon in a given context. This happens when the researcher uses a case that helps to understand a phenomenon. For instance, if one wishes to understand how education institutes quickly shifted from physical mode of teaching to online mode of teaching during the pandemic, the researcher may choose any single education institute to explore this transition. In this situation the case chosen will be instrumental in understanding how the said transition was done. Stake explains this in the following manner:

In a different situation we will have a research question, a puzzlement, a need for general understanding, and feel that we may get insight into the question by studying a particular case…. This use of case study is to understand something else…and we may call it our inquiry instrumental case study.?(Stake, 1995, p. 3)

Collective Cases

Collective cases are on similar lines as instrumental cases. The basic difference is that instead of a single instrumental case, the researcher may use a collection of cases to understand the transition of educational institutions from physical mode to online mode of teaching.

Research Questions

Like Yin and Eisenhardt, Stake too puts emphasis on the need of research questions from the starting of the study. He calls them ‘issue questions’. In other words, issue questions are questions pertaining to those issues the researchers wish to answer during the course of the study. Stake doesn’t say that a question should be what, why, how, etc. Instead, his idea about issue questions are that they should be broad and ‘something more problematic’, which deeply connects the context of the case to provide conceptual understanding. He reminds: ‘Good research is not about good methods as much as it is about good thinking’.

He further warns the researchers not to confuse issue questions with information or evaluation questions. Information and evaluation questions would provide shallow answers while issue questions would provide answer that contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon. Examples of the three types of questions—information, evaluation and issue—are provided as follows.

Information questions: How many education institutes shifted from physical to online mode of teaching?

Evaluation questions: What was the impact of online education on the teaching learning process?

Issue Questions: How did the transition to online line learning influence the teaching learning process?

To answer the information and evaluation questions, the researcher is not required to do an in-depth study; a simple survey may answer them or, in case of the first question, information available online will suffice while to answer the last question the researcher needs to immerse themselves to understand the issue at hand, take interviews from multiple stakeholders, make observations, etc. Nonetheless, information and evaluation questions are vital as they complement the contribution of the issue question, hence they should not be discarded but they should not be the main questions that the researcher tries to address. Hence, identifying the appropriate research questions is crucial for the success of the study.

Further, Stake encourages the researcher to have multiple issue questions to begin with and to gradually reduce them to the most relevant ones. For instance, the initial question could be ‘What challenges were faced by the institute to change to online mode?’, ‘How did different departments help in this transition?’, ‘How did the constantly changing government advisories influenced the transition?’, ‘How did students cope with this transition?’, ‘How did the teachers cope with the transition?’, etc. Gradually, the researcher may narrow down to specific questions that seem most relevant and feasible; sometimes an overarching question can become the focus and the remaining questions become a part of the interview protocol.

A case for qualitative approach

Going beyond discussing the research questions that shall be appropriate for the study, Stake makes a case of using qualitative approach for case study wherein, he emphasises on three areas that deserve special attention when making distinction between qualitative and quantitative approach: (a) explanation versus understanding as the purpose of study, (b) role of the researcher as personal versus impersonal and (c) knowledge discovered versus knowledge constructed.

Taking into consideration the first distinction, that is, explanation versus understanding, Stake argues that the quantitative approach is inclined toward explanation of a phenomenon based on relationship between independent variables while controlling other variables. On the other hand, the qualitative case study researcher shall aim to understand what is going on with and across the case(s) at hand, holistically, while identifying the embedded complexities and relationships. This may seem confusing as explanation and understanding can often be used as synonyms. To give more clarity, Stake quotes from von Wright’s (1971) book Explanation and Understanding:

Practically every explanation, be it causal or teleological or of some other kind, can be said to further our understanding of things. But ‘understanding’ also has a psychological ring ‘explanation’ has not. This psychological feature was emphasized by several of the nineteenth-century antipositivist methodologists, perhaps most forcefully by Simmel who thought that understanding as a method characteristic of the humanities is a form empathy or re-creation in the mind of the scholar of the mental atmosphere, the thoughts and feelings and motivations, of the objects of his study…. Understanding is also connected with intentionality in a way that explanation is not. One understands the aims and purposes of an agent, the meaning of a sign or symbol, and the significance of a social institution or religious rite. This intentionalistic…dimension of understanding has come to play a prominent role in more recent methodological discussion. (p. 6)

Stake furthers the distinction between the two by arguing that though both lead to each other, there is an epistemological difference between the two as quantitatively driven case study explain the cause and effect while qualitative tries to understand the human experience of a phenomenon in a given context.???

Apart from the distinction between the aim of the study being explanation or understanding, the role of the researcher is crucial. In quantitative approach, the researcher keeps themselves away from the data and the interpretations drawn from statistical measurements limit the role of the researcher. For instance, if in a study the p value happens to be above 0.5, this leads to obvious interpretation and the researcher has hardly any say in it. Thus, the role of the researcher’s own understanding or inferences stays limited. While in case of (constructivist) qualitative research, the researcher is an integral part of the study. They need to consciously interpret the happenings. Stake notes: ‘standard qualitative design call for the persons most responsible for interpretations to be in the field, making observations, exercising subjective judgement, analysing and synthesising, all the while realising their own consciousness’.

Thus, in the qualitative case study research, the researcher is required and expected to make sense of the happening and to interpret using their own judgement. This is because it is the researcher who sees the whole of the phenomenon and not the agents (participants). Hence, they are the ones who can interpret better why things are happening the way they are happening.?????

The final difference between quantitative and qualitative case study researcher is the fact that the former believes in a world that is discovered while the later believes in one that is constructed. For a quantitative researcher, the reality which needs to be found is out there, and the various tools and techniques within the quantitative realm allows the process of discovery. As mentioned earlier, the researcher has hardly a say in the matter, and thus their interpretation is focused on the statistical findings. As a result, they stay impersonal with the data and the phenomenon being studied. On the other hand, since qualitative researchers are expected to interpret the findings and stay true to the subjectivities of the agents own reality, they help construct the understanding of the phenomenon influencing it with their own understanding.

Data Capturing

In Stake’s view, data gathering starts well before the actual study starts and is mostly dependent on how well the researcher can recognise the appropriate data source for the study. He notes:

There is no particular moment when data gathering begins. It begins before there is commitment to do the study: backgrounding, acquaintance with other cases, first impressions. A considerable proportion of all data is impressionistic, picked up informally as the researcher first becomes acquainted with the case. Many of these early impressions will later be refined or replaced, but the pool of data includes the earliest of observations.?(Stake, 1995, p. 49)??

Stake further explains that very little data gets recorded. Although interview recordings are a common thing now, observations and field notes have to be done by the researcher on their own with a lot of reflective practice. A good way to keep reflections organised is by developing a data gathering plan. According to Stake the essential part of this plan are definition of case, list of research questions, identification of helpers, data sources, allocation of time, expenses and intended reporting, although the list is not exhaustive, and a researcher may end up including many more things, one of which could be applying for funding.

A very crucial part of the data gathering is identifying the data source, Stake’s take on this is intuitive. He states that ‘selection of data sources can be left too much to chance’?(Stake, 1995, p. 56). He seems to mean that the availability of the right people to provide information may not always be there, however each researcher is required to work towards finding the participants who can provide relevant information while also remembering that often unintended data source may provide information that betters the researchers understanding of the case. Hence, the researcher should not ignore any information within the case that comes their way.

The most common way of gathering data in qualitative case study research is interviews. The interviews are also the main element of subjectivity and relativity that the constructivist researcher looks for. Unlike survey, interviews do to not necessarily have a fixed set of questions. They are mostly leading questions that can help address the study, however these questions evolve during the interview and often before the next one. Thus, it is essential that the researcher keeps these interviews less structured. Stake explains: ‘Qualitative case study seldom proceeds as a survey with the same questions asked to each respondent; rather each interviewee is expected to have had unique experiences, special stories to tell’?(Stake, 1995, p. 65).

Observations are necessary in the whole process of data gathering as the observations provide those evidences that otherwise remain latent in the interviews. Thus, the observations become the glue, the connecting dots of the entire study. As he states: ‘During observation, the qualitative case study researcher keeps a good record of events to provide a relatively incontestable description for further analysis and ultimate reporting. He or she lets the occasion tell its story, the situation, the problem, resolution or irresolution of the problem’?(Stake, 1995, p. 62).

Another source of data is documents, which could include news articles, internal organisational documents, annual reports, minutes of meetings, diaries of respondents, etc., Similar to interviews and observations, sometimes the documents could be too many and the researcher may get lost in the process; however, the research questions should guide in evaluating the same. While considering any and every data source, it is absolutely vital to have written consent for the access to data.

Describing the context

Every case study is defined and bound by its context. Although the researcher is studying a phenomenon, they are studying in a given context. Hence, appropriately describing the context is essential, so that it gives the readers a sense of ‘being there’. However, sometimes the researchers provide too much information about the context that is not relevant for the study. To provide better understanding about this, Stake suggests that the context could be historical, cultural, physical or aesthetics, based on the research questions. Moreover, the description of the context may vary depending on whether your study is intrinsic or instrumental.

The more the case study is an intrinsic case study, the more attention needs to be paid to the context. The more the case study is an instrumental case study, certain contexts may be important, but other contexts important to the case are of little interest to the study. The allocation of attention to contexts will be based partly on the distinction between intrinsic and instrumental purposes’?(Stake, 1995, p. 64).

Analysing and Interpreting

Like data gathering, Stake’s suggests the analysis doesn’t start at a particular moment and that as soon as you start gathering data, you start analysing them. However, he provides two strategies that can be used while analysis—categorical aggregation or direct interpretation. Both are used together in analysing the data. In the former, the researcher is identifying specific incidences that provide direct interpretation about the case. For instance, while studying how transition to online teaching has influenced the teaching learning process, the researcher interviewed a student who stated that they miss the physical presence of the teacher, and notes it as a direct interpretation. However, when going through interviews of other students, similar statements are found and the researcher finds a categorical aggregation, which suggests that students wish to have the physical presence of the teacher. However, those direct interpretations that appear only once but are important for that one person become a part of finding without categorical aggregation. Whether a researcher gives more weightage to categorical aggregation or direct interpretation will largely depend on whether the researcher is doing an intrinsic or instrumental case study research. For obvious reasons, the direct interpretation will be of higher importance in the former and categorical aggregation in the latter.

Irrespective of the two, the analysis should lead to building of patterns within or across cases, which Stake call ‘correspondence”’, and these often are the patterns that the researcher may already have expected to find in advance. He notes:

The search for meaning often is a search for patterns, for consistency within certain conditions, which we call correspondence…. Both categorical aggregation and direct interpretation depend greatly on the search for patterns. Often, the patterns will be known in advance, drawn from research questions, serving as a template for the analysis. Sometimes, the patterns will emerge unexpectedly from the analysis.?(Stake, 1995, p. 78)

Reaching generalisation

A common criticism that qualitative case study researches have faced is about its generalisation. Stake acknowledges that it is not wrong to say that findings of case study research cannot reach propositional generalisation, or what Yin call statistical generalisation.

Stake argues that the aim of a qualitative case study research is not to reach generalisation but to reach particularisation, that is, revealing in-depth particulars about the specific case being studied. Since it is a single case that a researcher focuses on, it wouldn’t be incorrect to say that generalisation, as it is established in the survey study researches, is impossible for a case study research. However, since the analysis result in emergence of patterns through categorical aggregation, certain generalisations can be drawn within the case itself. Often these recurring themes may modify or reinforce a grand generalisation from the extant literature. It will result in modification or further research question when the findings are conflicting with the grand generalisation.

Further, Stake argues that qualitative case study research arrives at naturalistic generalisation, He explains naturalistic generalisation as ‘conclusions arrived at through personal engagement in life’s affairs or by vicarious experience so well constructed that the person feels as if it happened to themselves’ (Stake, 1995, p. 85). In simple words, the generalisation achieved is not necessarily applicable to a large set of population; however, many aspects of the findings are relatable and applicable to personal lives of other individuals or other entities existing in similar context.

Quality Parameter for Stake’s Approach

Like Yin and Eisenhardt, Stake also worries about validity issues for a qualitative case study research and thus provides ways to achieve it through triangulation. For this he asks researchers to develop and follow certain protocols. He draws these from Norman Denzin’s book The Research Act, wherein four protocols are provided. The first is data source triangulation—an effort to see if what is being observed and reported carries same meaning when found under different circumstances. For instance, if the students are asked what they miss most about physical mode of learning, and their responses indicate the presence of teacher and the ease to communicate with them. By asking similar question, when the teaching mode is shifted to physical, if the students provide a similar reply, then the findings can be said to be valid. Moreover, if similar findings are found from multiple sources, for instance, newspaper report or interview of the parents or the teachers, then it suggests that the researcher have achieved data source triangulation. The second is investigator triangulation—when other researchers look at the data and provide their own interpretation of the same. The researcher then tries to look for similarities and dissimilarities among their own and other interpretations to achieve triangulation. The third is theory triangulation—there will be dissimilarities in the interpretations of two investigators, but as long as they agree to the meaning of each other’s interpretations, it is said to be theoretically triangulated. Moreover, the differences allow better conceptual understanding of the phenomenon and thus result in higher validation in the eyes of the reader. The final and most sort after triangulation is methodological triangulation, which requires the researcher to gather data from multiple forms, as mentioned earlier, through interviews, observations and documents, and looking for correspondence to the findings.

Finally, to increase the validity of the study, Stake suggests doing member checking. In this process, as Stake puts it:

[T]he actor (research participant) is requested to examine rough drafts of writing where the actions or words of the actor are featured, sometimes when first written up but usually when no further data will be collected from him or her. The actor is asked to review the material for accuracy and palatability. The actor may be encouraged to provide alternative language or interpretation but is not promised that their version will appear in the final report. Regularly, some of that feedback is worthy of inclusion. (Stake, 1995, p. 115)

Robert Stake’s version of case study research is quite different from Yin and Eisenhardt, however he, like them, cautions the researcher that they ensure to achieve validity. The major difference in Stakes version is that they focus on the research process while Stake focuses on the case itself. However, while reading through his version, it can be seen that Stake also provides a structured way of conducting a qualitative case study research, which was visible in this section.

Sharan Merriam’s Approach

The final approach to case study research that is being covered in this article is that of Sharan Merriam. While she does acknowledge that case study can be done both using quantitative and qualitative methods, like Stake, Merriam’s version of case study research is also qualitative and epistemic stance is constructivist. She states:

Qualitative case studies share with other forms of qualitative research the search for meaning and understanding, the researcher as the primary instrument of data collection and analysis, an inductive investigative strategy, and the end product being richly descriptive. (Merriam, 2009)?

Defining Case Study Research

Much of Merriam’s version of the case study is from Stake. Drawing from his understanding of case study, Merriam defines case study as ‘an in-depth description and analysis of a bounded system’. She states ‘the single most defining characteristic of case study research lies in delimiting the object of study, the case’. She further agrees that a case has to be a bounded system that can be fenced within a phenomenon. Thus, according to her, a case can be a single person, a programme, a group, an organisation, etc.

To further emphasise the importance of boundedness, she suggests for researchers to see ‘how finite the data collection would be’. If the researcher concludes that the data source doesn’t have a limit, then the study cannot be qualified as a case. To differentiate qualitative case study research from other forms of qualitative study, Merriam argues that other forms of qualitative researches are defined by the focus of the study, that is, what you wish to conquer by doing that study, while in qualitative case study research it is the unit of analysis. Moreover, she notes that since case study is distinguished by the unit of analysis, other forms of qualitative researches (like narrative, phenomenology, ethnography, etc.) can be integrated with the case study research. ??

Features of the Case

Merriam lists three features that make case study research a case study research. First, the case study research is particularistic. Suggesting that it revolves around a particular happening, which makes it rather useful approach for praxis, she notes:

Particularistic means that case studies focus on a particular situation, event, program, or phenomenon. The case itself is important for what it reveals about the phenomenon and for what it might represent. This specificity of focus makes it an especially good design for practical problems—for questions, situations, or puzzling occurrences arising from everyday practice.?(Merriam, 2009, p. 43)

Second, it is descriptive, which essentially indicates that the presentation of this study includes rich descriptions of what is being studied. She explains it as:

Descriptive means that the end product of a case study is a rich, ‘thick’ description of the phenomenon under study. Thick description is a term from anthropology and means the complete, literal description of the incident or entity being investigated. Case studies include as many variables as possible and portray their interaction, often over a period of time. ?(Merriam, 2009, p. 43)

The final feature of the approach is Heuristic, which means ‘that case studies illuminate the reader’s understanding of the phenomenon under study. They can bring about the discovery of new meaning, extend the reader’s experience, or confirm what is known’ (Merriam, 2009, p. 44).

Types of Cases

Merriam suggests that there are essentially three types of cases: (a) Historical and Observational, (b) Intrinsic and Instrumental, and (c) Multisite case studies.

Historical and Observational

Drawing from the works of Bogdan and Biklen (2007), Merriam notes that case study research under this category could be historical organisational case studies, life histories and observational case studies.

The historical organisational case studies are focused on the development of an organisation of a given period of time. For instance, if a researcher wishes to study the growth of an entrepreneurial organisation that is now a giant corporation from its inception, they may choose this type of case study. The basic difference between historical research and historical case study research would be that the historical research would study an organisation that existed in the past and thus would rely on historical records, while an historical case study research shall also rely on historical records, but of an existing organisation, and would use interviews too to understand what made it rise or fall since the inception of the organisation.

In case of life history, the researcher focuses on the life of one individual and intensively studies their life by collecting first person narratives. Merriam reminds us that this type of case study research is known by different terms including biographical case study and portraiture as well as life story.?

The observational case studies research is focused on some organisation, and predominantly includes participant observation while also including interview data and documents. Further, it may not necessarily focus on the entire organisation; rather, it could aim at studying a specific set of individuals or a particular portion of the organisation, like meeting rooms, manufacturing units or board members, etc.

?Intrinsic and Instrumental

Merriam has drawn this typology from Robert Stake’s approach to qualitative case study research. Since it has already been discussed earlier under the Stake’s approach to case study research, it shall not be discussed here again.

Multisite Case Studies

Multisite case studies like life history cases are known by different terms including multi-case studies, cross-case studies, collective case studies or comparative case studies. Like as explained earlier under Robert Yin’s version of case study research, it includes multiple, more than one, cases that are embedded under a larger case being studied. She reminds us that the use of multiple case studies results in higher external validity and generalisability.

Data Collection

Similar to what has been discussed earlier, collecting data in qualitative case study research includes, interviews, observations and documents. As a common knowledge, interviews are primary source of qualitative data collection. However, it is important to note when does a researcher opts for interview. Merriam notes:

Interviewing is necessary when we cannot observe behaviour, feelings, or how people interpret the world around them. It is also necessary to interview when we are interested in past events that are impossible to replicate…. Interviewing is also the best technique to use when conducting intensive case studies of a few selected individuals…. Conversely, interviewing can be used to collect data from a large number of people representing a broad range of ideas.?(Merriam, 2009, p. 88)

Although interviews can either be structured—well defined, semi-structure questions that are more flexible in nature and are relatively of exploring nature—or unstructured/informal—open-ended questions that lead into a conversation than interviews; the last type of interview is often used when the knowledge about the phenomenon is less. Moreover, Merriam encourages the researcher to probe emerging questions during the interview to capture better insights into the participants’ experience.

Since observation has already been discussed earlier, it shall not be discussed here again. However, Merriam has provided more information about the ‘documents’ that often need to be mined by the researcher. The documents could be available in form of public records artefacts, visual records, etc. They can also be researcher generated, which may include participant diaries or memos created by the researcher. The former types of documents may often have much irrelevant information from which the researcher needs to extract or mine what is relevant for the study.

Finally, it is necessary to remember that the data collection should rely on purposive sampling. As noted by Yin, Eisenhardt and Stake, it is crucial that the selected case provides the information about the phenomenon that the research is studying and that the information is in line with the research question and objectives that are to be addressed and achieved.

Data Analysis

Merriam advocates simultaneous data analysis and collection, which allows the researcher to collect appropriate data for the study. She argues that unless the researcher involves in simultaneous data collection and analysis, they might get overwhelmed with it and could often collect unfocused data. This could result in ambiguous findings that may not answer the research questions. She emphasises the need for simultaneity because the researcher may be unaware as to what may come of the analysis of the data in hand, and there is the possibility that the data collected were not from the sources that would provide answers to the research question that the researcher set out to find. Adapting this strategy may lead to parsimonious and illuminating findings. Moreover, deriving from what Yin calls ‘maintaining case study database’ Merriam advocates to use this strategy in her approach as well. This is because case study can have an enormous amount of data, and managing the same is of paramount importance.???

She further provides a step-by-step process of analysing the data starting with ‘category construction’. She advocates coding, starting with open coding, wherein the initial codes can be as many as the researcher thinks fit to be presented. This allows the researcher to freely reflect their understanding of what is happening in the data.

As the researcher keeps identifying the open codes, they should keep memoing those codes that can be seen repeating across interviews and putting them under one theme. This is called ‘sorting categories’. Gradually, the number of final categories should be reduced to a manageable level. Merriam states ‘the fewer the categories, the greater the level of abstraction, and the greater ease with which you can communicate your findings to others’ (Merriam, 2009, p. 187).

To decide which categories to keep, Merriam takes inspiration from Guba and Lincoln (1981) who suggest four guidelines to make that decision:

First, the number of people who mention something or the frequency with which something arises in the data indicates an important dimension. Second, the audience may determine what is important—that is, some categories will appear to various audiences as more or less credible. Third, some categories will stand out because of their uniqueness and should be retained. And fourth, certain categories may reveal ‘areas of inquiry not otherwise recognized’ or ‘provide a unique leverage on an otherwise common problem’. (Merriam, 2009, p. 187)

The aforementioned holds true for single case studies. However, for multiple case studies, the researcher needs to further do a within and cross-case analysis, in that order. Hence, initially the researcher needs to do a comparative analysis within the single case and then do the same across cases. The aim is to identify as many contextual variables (the variables specific to the case context that are interfering in why it is happening the way it is happening) as possible within the case and then try to identify which similar variables are emerging in the other cases. This may lead to general abstraction about the phenomenon being studied through these multiple cases.??

It won’t be incorrect to admit that her process of coding is drawn from grounded theory, however, she doesn’t talk about theory building particularly in case study research. Nonetheless, she does give an idea about how to research theory development. She suggests that a researcher should reach a level of analysis where they reach abstract understanding of the phenomenon thus theorising from the study. She defines theorising as ‘a step toward developing a theory that explains some aspect of practice and allows a researcher to draw inferences about future activity’ (Merriam, 2009, p. 188).

To explain when and how the researcher should strive for theorising, Merriam notes:

Data often seem to beg for continued analysis past the formation of categories. A key here is when the researcher knows that the category scheme does not tell the whole story—that there is more to be understood about the phenomenon. This often leads to trying to link the conceptual elements—the categories—together in some meaningful way. One of the best ways to try this out is to visualize how the categories work together. A model is just that—a visual presentation of how abstract concepts (categories) are related to one another. Even a simple diagram or model using the categories and subcategories of the data analysis can effectively capture the interaction or relatedness of the findings.?(Merriam, 2009, p. 189)

Quality Parameter for Merriam’s Approach

Merriam’s version of ensuring quality of a qualitative case study research includes the notion of credibility, consistency and transferability. She replaces internal validity with credibility while suggesting the same ways to achieve it as provided by Stake—triangulation. In place of external validity, she argues that the researcher should strive for transferability.

Transferability can be achieved by providing rich and descriptive data, which the individual applying the findings can rely on and thus transfer to their own setting or study. Quoting Lincoln and Guba, for transferability,

The burden of proof lies less with the original investigator than with the person seeking to make an application elsewhere. The original inquirer cannot know the sites to which transferability might be sought, but the appliers can and do. The investigator needs to provide ‘sufficient descriptive data’ to make transferability possible. (1985, p. 298)

Further, as a replacement of reliability, she uses the notion of ‘consistency’ as provided by Lincoln and Guba (1985), thus arguing, ‘The more important question for qualitative research is whether the results are consistent with the data collected (Merriam, 2009, p. 221). What they insist on is that that the findings are consistent with the data rather that promoting the notion that others should be able to find similar results, thus promoting consistency or dependability as a quality parameter over reliability.

Finally, Merriam notes that to do a credible qualitative research, it is essential for the researcher to be ethical in representing the data. This parameter is particularly important in qualitative case study research as different sources may provide different information and how much of it should be represented in the findings is a dilemma often faced by researchers. To address this concern, she advocates to use a 10-pointer ethical checklist as provided by Patton (2002, p. 408–409) ?that include (a) Explaining purpose of the inquiry and methods to be used, (b) Promises and reciprocity, (c) Risk assessment (will your study put the participants at any kind of risk), (d) Confidentiality, (e) Informed Consent, (f) Data access and ownership (who will have it and why), (g) Interviewer mental health, (h) Advice (who will be your counsellor on ethical matters), (i) Data collection boundaries and (j) Ethical versus legal conduct (ensuring that the ethical parameters used for the study stay within the legal boundaries of the law under which the study falls).

Merriam’s approach, though constructivist, is also pragmatic in way of thinking as she notes that case study research can be both quantitatively and qualitatively approached. However, she prefers the qualitative lineage. One major distinction between her and other approaches, including Stakes’, is her understanding of achieving quality. She doesn’t give into the positivist legacy of research quality, and rather reminds us that qualitative case study research has a different approach and hence its quality will also be maintained accordingly.

The four approaches of case study research discussed in this two-part article are presented with the aim to help researchers who are new to case study research but wish to take up this strategy. Any of the versions of case study research can be used while starting a study with the aim of exploring a phenomenon. However, it is advised that the researcher should either stick to one approach or, if they wish to use a combination, they should justify their stance towards it. A good way to decide which approach to use it to start with their own epistemic stance. For the convenience of the readers the four approaches discussed have been presented in Annexure 1.

?Recipe for Desk Rejection in Case Research Journal

This section of the article shall not be driven by literature, rather from the personal experience of a reviewer and editorial member of a case journal that has shifted its scope from teaching cases to research cases. Nonetheless, it shall start with a small section from Yin’s (2018) book which highlights the confusion between case study research and other types of case study:

A more recent realization…has been that case studies also exist outside the domain of case study research. People who do such case studies don’t necessarily think of themselves as practicing a formal research method. In fact, a far more common use of ‘case studies’ takes place as an everyday form of exposition, appearing in newsprint, magazines, blogs, videos, and nearly every type of popular media. ‘Let’s write a case study’ or ‘We need to find a case’ serve as common motives for engaging in such work, and just about anyone— you included—may participate. The result has been an ongoing stream of popular case studies that have been highly informative and useful. However, the case studies do not necessarily follow any explicit research procedures. Instead, you might think of them as nonresearch case studies.

In a similar manner, case studies frequently appear as supplementary materials in professional training and practicums. These have been commonly called ‘teaching cases’. The early ones served such professions as business, law, and, later, medicine. Currently, these kinds of case studies seem to be appearing with increasing frequency and in greater variety. They are now associated with professional development courses on such topics as career counseling, psychotherapy, nursing ethics, service innovation, finance, and marketing. Thus, the classic ‘teaching cases’ may be considered part of a broader genre that might be recognized as teaching-practice case studies. The purpose of these kinds of case studies has been to present information about practical situations (for training or practice) but, again, not necessarily to follow any explicit research procedures.

Taken together, the popular case studies, as well as the teaching-practice case studies, probably typify the kind of case studies most commonly encountered by everyone (including scholars and specialists from non–social science fields). As a result, these two types of case studies, rather than research case studies, likely drive everyday impressions of what constitutes a case study. People may then inadvertently be led to believe that ‘case studies’ are a form of literary exposition or supplemental practice material and not an explicit endeavor within social science research.

In other words, the visibility and prevalence of the two types of nonresearch case studies may be one reason for the sometimes disparaging reputation of research case studies. So—if you want to do case study research—be aware that you need to promote openly a higher set of expectations. Research inquiries are methodic, demand an acceptable level of discipline, and should exhibit transparency about their procedures. Especially to be avoided is the notion that the main skill needed to do case study research is to be a good writer (although being an enthusiastic writer does not hurt).

Recently the South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases (SAGE Publications) has shifted its scope from non-research cases studies to case study research, more particularly qualitative case study research. However, to ensure a smooth transition, the journal has been considering teaching cases that have a potential to be converted into a research case. The likelihood of the same is determined by the possibility of primary data collection, including interviews or observations. Despite this approach, the desk rejection has increased exponentially, wherein four out of five cases face desk rejection. This concerning situation has called for a special section to discuss why rejections takes place, and the same is discussed hereafter.

Title of the Case

The first thing that catches the eye of the editorial team is, for obvious reasons, the title of the case. It is important to acknowledge and remember that the title of the case should reflect its content. In a teaching case, the title is abstract and is expected to be abstract to catch the attention of the reader, while in case study research, the title should indicate what is being studied. For instance, a title like ABC organisation in trouble instantly gives the impression that it is a teaching case as it tries to vaguely capture the content. It is often said that a teaching case should have a poetic ring to it. On the other hand, the title of a research case should be more specific. It is preferred that the title specifies the phenomenon being studied. Even if the name of the organisation or event is not included, the phenomenon studied should be included, and as far as possible the theory should also be included. A good example is The Role of Trust in the Strategic Management Process: A Case Study of Finnish Grocery Retail Company Kesko Ltd ?(Malkam?ki et al., 2021) or Achieving Lean Warehousing Through Value Stream Mapping (Abhishek & Pratap, 2020). In the first case, the authors had included the name of the organisation; however, the focus was on the theory (trust) and phenomenon (strategic management process). In the second case, the focus of the title was on theory (Value Stream Mapping) and phenomenon (Lean Warehousing). Thus, the research case title should avoid being vague and indicate the phenomenon, possibly the theory, and if it has used a specific approach of case study research, then it may be as well mentioned (but not mandatory). The length of the title could vary between 8 to 12 words.

Another issue that has often been noticed is that the title of the case is not in tandem with the case content. Often it has been found that the case is focused on something else while the title either indicates an entirely different focus or misses the major aspects of the case. For instance, a case title indicating the role of emotions in consumer behaviour while the content doesn’t focus on emotions it is a fundamental flaw and calls for immediate rejection.????

Absence of Contemporary Phenomenon

As mentioned in the various approaches of case study research, the presence of phenomenon is a critical part of the case study research. It reiterates Yin’s definition of case study research being an empirical method that ‘investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-world context’.

A phenomenon is a happening of something that is not fully understood. As vague as it may sound, multiple phenomena are occurring around us at any given point in time. Discrimination, sustainability, leadership, employee or customer experience, social engineering, mindfulness, job crafting, patient engagement, bullying, talent retention, etc. all are examples of phenomena. In fact, to study a phenomenon, one may not need context as a phenomenon exists irrespective of the context.

However, often manuscripts are submitted which do not address any phenomenon, or rather the author is unaware of it. These manuscripts, generally event-based, are simple descriptions of some event. They do not explain why this study is done. It is ok to have such manuscripts in non-research cases; they are good for magazines, blogs, newspaper articles or, if written with a dilemma, even for a teaching case. But not for case study research. For instance, studying about how good a CEO handled the COVID crisis in their organisation, the researcher collects primary and secondary data, and they simply describe what actions the CEO took, instead to using an appropriate method of analysis and discussing the same through the phenomenon of leadership or disaster or crisis. This will not make any sense for reviewers of a case research journal, hence such cases immediately get rejected. Thus, when writing a case study research, the researcher is free to be intrigued with an event, but they have to explore what phenomenon is occurring within the event. However, it is cautioned, as noted by Stake, that events do not entail enough complexity to qualify for case study research.

Over-exaggerating the Context??

Since the case study is a bounded system, the presence of context is a given. As mentioned earlier, phenomenon exists irrespective of context, and a case study research cannot be conducted without a context. Context demystifies the nuances of a given phenomenon. It is in fact a specific dimension of a phenomenon that allows the researcher to narrow down their array of study while increasing the process of demystification of the what, how and why of the phenomenon. For instance, Japan is known for its ancient practice of mindfulness, which has helped the country to stay ahead of time. Hence, if one is to study the phenomenon of mindfulness in Japan, it would be said that the context of the study is a region. If one can further narrow down the context by studying mindfulness among the managers in Japan’s automobile sector, the context shrinks to an industry sector. To reduce it to a case, one could study the mindfulness of the managers in a particular organisation, for instance, Nissan.

Having mentioned the relevance of context in a case study research, one needs to be careful about the how much context needs to be described. It has been observed that many teaching case writers, when submit a manuscript, claiming that it is a case study research, they put over emphasis on the context. One needs to remember that in teaching case, the context plays a different role than a research case.

In a teaching case, the context is elaborated for providing as much information as possible to the students to be able to make decision. On the other hand, in a research case the context is explained to highlight the elements that are relevant to the case. For a case study research about mindfulness among the managers of Nissan, the context will be the culture of Japan (only that part which reflects mindfulness), the mindfulness practices within the organisation, organisational culture, probably, and also possibly the leader’s role in promoting mindfulness and the organisations market performance since the time they have started adapting mindfulness in organisational practices. What will not be required is the history of the organisation, the history of Japan and details of the automobile sector. In other words, the context provided in a case study research will be directly in tandem with the research questions. Thus, when unnecessary aspects of the context are included, the manuscript may face rejection.

Lacking Contribution?

Going back to what Yin said, the study should be focused on exploring contemporary phenomenon. Like any other researcher, it is expected that the researcher should know where the area of study is lacking attention or where the knowledge gap is wide. It is often seen that researchers submit manuscripts of well-established phenomenon and the study does not add anything to the knowledge. These studies simply re-enforce what is already known in a different context. It is a still a research, however it is not a good strategy when using case study research. As mentioned in the various approaches of case study research, one should use this research methodology when there is little known about the phenomenon, the case adds some new insights to it, or if the phenomenon is complex enough to bring out new dimensions. For instance, researches that have studied the personality of a leader can be found in abundance; hence addressing that in the case may not add any value to the already established literature. However, cases which study the same but do a longitudinal study about an organisation and explores how the personality of different leaders influenced the growth of an organisation, it may still add some new value to the literature. Hence, even if one chooses an old phenomenon, unless the study makes some contribution, it can out rightly be rejected.

Another way a study lacks contribution is when it is fixated with an event or a protagonist. There is nothing wrong in a case being focused on one event or one protagonist, but if it is not able to identify how this event of the protagonist is providing new knowledge, it may not be accepted. Authors often simply provide a long description of the event or about the protagonist, mostly their journey, but they fail to discuss how is either of them is different from the already known literature. The reviewer’s first reaction to such cases is ‘so what’, thus how is it going to help understand the phenomenon better. When explaining this to the author, it is often heard that this person’s life or this event provides new insights. But they fail to understand that while they may be able to see the new insights, it is not visible for the reader, and it is job of the researcher to convince the reader that their study is providing new knowledge. This can only be done when the data is actually analysed before presenting the findings and when common and contrasting findings are discussed with reference to the current literature.

Absence of Relevant Research Question

No case study research can survive without research questions. Unfortunately, this is where most of the research face rejection. The authors of many cases do not formulate an appropriate research question at the beginning of their study. It is observed that often the easiest questions become the research question, which is ‘what happened’ as stated by Stake the ‘information questions’. When a research question is focused on what happened, it fails to capture the why and how of the case, and that is where the contributory elements lie. A ‘what’ question principally focuses on simple description without establishing any relationship between the events or patterns that could emerge. As most case study research rely on interview and observations, the wrongly formulated research question leads to capturing of insufficient data during interviews and observations. Thus, when such articles face rejection and suggestions to revisit their study with a new set of research questions, it is highly likely that nothing much can be done since the collected data becomes irrelevant. It is almost impossible to go back to the organisation or the protagonist asking for new set of data. The reviewers are well aware of this and thus instead of asking to revise the case, they prefer rejecting it.

Incorrect Introduction

Because teaching cases are so commonly used, researchers often fail to appreciate that research cases start with the introduction of the phenomenon rather than the case. Teaching cases require the authors to create drama in the beginning of the case itself, like the starting of a story, which is especially focused on a dilemma. Despite claiming to write a case study research, the authors often forget this crucial difference when writing the introduction of the study. It is very unlikely that a starting of the case study research will start with a drama. This mistake leaves an impression that it is a teaching case, and the reviewer, without even reading beyond the introduction, immediately rejects the case.

Thus, the researcher will do well to bear in mind that the introduction of the case study research should be aimed at establishing what the phenomenon being studied is and why is it relevant to study it and to end with briefly describing the case that is used to study the phenomenon.????

Focusing on Literature Review

Another mistake that researchers usually do is writing a full-fledged literature review instead of focusing on the theoretical background of the study. Difference between literature review and theoretical background is that the former is aimed at merely identifying the gap while the latter it is aimed at building the theoretical support for the phenomenon being studied, indicating the limitations in the current understanding of the same.

For instance, you are to study why younger generation are more inclined towards venturing into starting sustainable enterprises. When one starts studying the literature on it, they may find many papers that are focused on sustainable enterprises and provide a plethora of information about it. Like when did such enterprises start, which countries have the maximum number of enterprises, which industry have the maximum number of such enterprises, their impact the environment, any connections with sustainable development goals, etc. However, are these references relevant to the research question? Possibly not. through the question one can connect it ?to age of the entrepreneurs, they may also connect with family influence and personal experiences of the entrepreneurs. Hence, that is where the literature should be focused on. The literature that directly provides support to the research question should be included and not everything that is found about sustainable entrepreneurship. This is a major mistake that many authors make while writing a case study research, and thus increase to risk of facing rejection. Hence, it is essential that the researcher builds the study on a specific and relevant theory background or framework.?

Methodological Flaws

Due to the lack of knowledge about case study research, authors make blunders when explaining the methodology of the case. Simply writing that case study approach has been used will not suffice. Since case study research always comes under scrutiny, the authors need to be even more cautious when using it. This approach needs rigours and evidence trail to establish its quality—credibility, transferability and consistency as noted by Merriam (2009) or reliability and validity as noted by Yin, Eisenhardt and Stake.

One of the common ways of showing that the article has ensured rigour is by establishing triangulation. However, in the name of triangulation, authors often mention capturing data from various sources without explaining the relevance of that data. As noted earlier, each data source is important to the extent it complements each other to reach triangulation. Additionally, authors do not perform any analysis on the collected data even after mentioning that they have captured data through interviews and other sources. Thus, it is often difficult to understand how the conclusions were reached without any analysis method. It has been seen that authors often lack the knowledge of what method of analysis the case study research adapts. The aforementioned approaches can be a helpful start in this direction. Many times, triangulation is not done, while a single source of data is used to reach the findings. This is a common practice and is often accepted by journals; however, in such case, the rigour of analysis and evidential proof of the rigour is essential to be provided. A well accepted evidence is provided through a tabular representation of how the researcher arrived at the themes from the interview data.

Submitting Teaching Notes

A classic reason for rejection is the presence of teaching notes. As soon as the editorial team of a case research journal realises that the author has submitted teaching notes, they refrain from looking at the case and its viability of being converted into a case study research. Moreover, submitting a teaching note clearly indicates that the author has little to no knowledge about case study research, thus resulting in a desk rejection.

Benefits of Discussing a Research Case in Class

Cases have been part of teaching pedagogy for over a century. The same has been established in the previous article. Shared belief is that a teaching case driven by an event, posing dilemma and having a protagonist who is facing multiple options to choose from for solving the dilemma suits better in a management class. However, can case study research also be used in classroom teaching?

As the business world is getting more complex, one of the skills demanded by organisations is a research-oriented curious mindset. Although teaching cases help develop and assess critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making skills in a simulated risk-free environment of a classroom, teaching cases cannot provide an environment in which the knowledge and skills thus acquired can be translated into ‘doing’ and ‘being’ stages for the students to be able to apply, critique and evaluate in a different situation. They are not exposed to the challenges of formulating the problem, developing a research question, hunting for actual data and analysing the same to solve the problem.

This gap between knowing, doing and being can affectively be bridged by a research case. For example, after discussing a phenomenon-based research case on ‘employee engagement’, ‘job embeddedness’ or ‘transactive memory system’ in a class, students may be asked to do either a short-term field project or the summer internship of assessing the same phenomenon in a real firm. Students get to observe how the phenomenon works in real organisation, identify the weak links and come up with recommendations backed by research. This alternative will add value not only to the organisation but also to the student’s learning process by making the student traverse all the stages of Bloom’s Taxonomy (a teaching case can cover only first three stages of knowing, understanding and analysing). The faculty mentor using research cases in class benefits by developing practice-oriented understanding of the phenomenon that may enhance teaching effectiveness and establish stronger connect with practitioners that may give rise to research ideas, and the project done by the student may be converted into a publishable research paper. Institutes in which majority of the faculty adopt research cases in pedagogy benefit by deeper access to corporates that may translate into better placements for the students and open the doors of consultancy for the faculty.

The monotony of students getting non-value-added type of summer projects can be broken by increasing the research exposure of both the faculty and industry mentors. By enticing willing faculty and interested students to undertake research-case-based projects, a win-win situation can be created in which a student project can help the organisation to solve a problem.?In many Western B-Schools students are required to develop a research output during their master’s programme. Majority of Indian B-schools are yet to catch up with trend.

Integrating case study research into the MBA curriculum will prepare students equally well for the three types of careers that a student wishes to pursue: research/teaching, setting up a venture as an entrepreneur or life in a corporate.

Conclusion

The different approaches to case study research often confuse an early career researcher and case writer to decide which approach to use and how to use it. This article was aimed at painting an overall scenario of how case study research should be approached and which mistakes should be avoided while crafting a publishable case study research. It is important to note that no one way of case study research is the best way, nor does this article advocate any specific way of doing a case study research. Instead, it encourages the researchers to explore the various ways a case study research can be done and then select the best way applicable for them. What it does advice is to be clear about the research problem and associated research paradigm before deciding which approach to use, as it will influence how the researcher will draw inferences from the case. In addition, the researcher should question if case study will be an appropriate methodology. The article ends with making a case on using case study research as a pedagogical tool to not only increase critical mind-set but also increase research mindset among the management students. This skill is becoming essential as the volatility in the environment is increasing and unprecedented situations are becoming a common occurring. ????

Author

Dr. Shreya Mishra is currently working as an Assistant Professor at BIMTECH and Assistant Editor of the South Asian Journal of Management Cases, SAGE. She has completed Doctoral Studies in 2019 in the area of Workplace Bullying. Published in Scopus and ABDC Journals, her research interests include studies on Workplace Bullying, Inequality, Power, Identity, Intersectionality, and Qualitative Research. Currently, her research focus is on coping and navigating through vulnerable life events.