Beaulieu et al.
(2007) make a great comment about the difficulty with case studies:
they ask how a case study can “be
used to inspire other work,
without
implicitly or explicitly falling into a universalizing fallacy?
(p. 673). As they go on to explain, case studies tend to either be
seen as unable to generate theory or as attempting to explain all
experiences with one experiment (through what Yin calls “cross-case
analysis,” p. 58). Yin (1981) argues that cross-case analysis, or
generating theory across multiple case studies, is possible through
constructing theories for each case and seeing if, allowing for some
flexibility, they can correspond to theories for other cases.
Interestingly,
Yin goes on to say that this method is not less scientific than
similar methods used for scientific experiments. I agree with Yin –
of course cross-case analysis may lead to over-generalization, but
that is always a risk for research of any kind. Furthermore, as Luker
points out a number of times in her book, theory-generating is an
important task of case studies. Without the hypotheses about broader
theories that case studies put forward, there would be no opportunity
to test those theories against a broader range of cases and therefore
generating strong new theoretical explanations would be much more
difficult.
Beaulieu, A., Scharnhorst, A. and Wouters,
P. (2007). Not another case study: A middle-range interrogation of
ethnographic case studies in the exploration of e-science. Science,
Technology and Human Values, 32.6, 672-692.
Yin, R.K. (1981). The case study crisis:
Some answers. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 26(1), 58-65.
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