Case Study: Methods and Analysis
Glaser B G, Strauss A L 1967 The Disco
ery of Grounded
Theory: Strategies for Qualitati
e Research. Aldine, Chicago
Lipset S M, Trow M, Coleman J S 1956 Union Democracy: the
Internal Politics of the International Typographical Union.
Free Press, Glencoe, IL
Lynd R, Lynd H M 1929 Middletown: A Study in American
Culture. Harcourt Brace, New York
Merriam S B 1998 Qualitati
e Research and Case Study Applica-
tions in Education. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
Orum A M 1995 City-Building in America. Westview Press,
Boulder, CO
Ragin C C, Becker H S (eds.) 1992 What Is A Case? Exploring
the Foundations of Social Inquiry. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK
Ragin C, Zaret D 1983 Theory and method in comparative
research: Two strategies. Social Forces 61(3): 731–54
Stake R E 1995 The Art of Case Study Research. Sage, Thousand
Oaks, CA
Warner R S 1991 Oenology: The making of New Wine. In:
Feagin J R, Orum A M, Sjoberg G (eds.) A Case for the Case
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Whyte W F 1943 Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of
an Italian Slum. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Yin R K 1994 Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 2nd
edn. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA
A. M. Orum
Case Study: Methods and Analysis
Case study methods have been around as long as
recorded history, and they presently account for a
large proportion of the books and articles in anthro-
pology, biology, economics, history, political science,
psychology, sociology, and even the medical sciences.
The logic of case study methods, much like that of any
historian’s or detective’s efforts to make inferences
from patterns within cases and comparisons between
them, is more intuitive than the logic of statistical
inference. Until relatively recently, however, the lack
of formalization of the logic of case study methods
inhibited them achieving their full potential for con-
tributing to the progressive and cumulative devel-
opment of theories. It is only in the last three decades
that scholars have formalized case study methods and
linked them to underlying arguments in the philosophy
of science. Ironically, statistical methods, though less
intuitive, were standardized earlier, so that attempts to
formalize case study methods often misappropriated
terms and concepts from statistics (McKeown 1999).
More recently, case study methods have evolved from
being defined ‘negatively,’ via contrasts to statistical
methods, to being defined ‘positively,’ by their dis-
tinctive logic, techniques, and comparative advan-
tages. This continuing evolution remains a contested
process, but there is growing consensus on the proper
procedures for carrying out case studies and the
strengths and limits of such studies. It is becoming
increasingly clear through this process that the com-
parative advantages of case study and statistical
methods are largely complementary and that the two
methods can thus achieve far more scientific progress
together than either could alone.
1. The Definition of ‘Case’ and ‘Case Study’
Early efforts to define ‘case studies’ relied on distinc-
tions between the study of a small vs. a large number
of instances of a phenomenon. Case studies thus
became characterized as ‘small n’ studies, in contrast
to ‘large N’ statistical studies. Related to this, one
early definition stated that a ‘case’ is a ‘phenomenon
for which we report and interpret only a single measure
on any pertinent variable’ (Eckstein 1975). Case study
researchers have increasingly rejected this definition,
however, because it wrongly implies, in the language
of statistics, that there is an inherent ‘degrees of
freedom’ problem in case studies. In other words, this
definition of case studies suggests that with a greater
number of variables than observations on the depe-
ndent variable, case studies provided no basis for
causal inference. In the view of case study researchers,
however, each case includes a potentially large number
of observations on intervening variables and quali-
tative measures of different aspects of the dependent
variable, so there is not just a ‘single measure’ of the
variables or an inherent degrees of freedom problem.
This point is increasingly recognized by researchers
from the statistical tradition (King et al. 1994).
In addition, the ‘small n\large N’ distinction implies
that large N methods are always preferable whenever
sufficient data is available. As argued below, however,
case studies can serve useful theory building purposes,
such as the inductive generation of new hypotheses,
even when instances of a phenomenon are sufficiently
numerous to allow the application of statistical
methods.
For present purposes, then, a case is defined as an
instance of a class of e
ents (George 1979 a, 1979 b).
The term ‘class of events’ refers here to a phenomenon
of scientific interest, such as revolutions, types of
governmental regime, kinds of economic system, or
personality types. A case study is thus a well-defined
aspect of a historical happening that the in
estigator
selects for analysis, rather than a historical happening
itself. The Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, is a
historical instance of many different classes of events:
cases of deterrence, coercive diplomacy, crisis man-
agement, and so on. In deciding which class of events
to study and which theories to use, the researcher
decides what data from the Cuban Missile Crisis is
relevant to their case study of it. Of course, even if one
accepts the present definition of a case, there is still
room in the context of particular studies to debate
such questions as: ‘what is this event a case of’ and
‘given this phenomenon, is this event a case of it?’
(Ragin and Becker 1992).
1513
Case Study: Methods and Analysis
There is potential for confusion among the terms
‘comparative methods,’ ‘case study methods,’ and
‘qualitative methods.’ In one view the comparative
method, or the use of comparisons among a small
number of cases, is distinct from the case study
method, which in this view involves the internal
examination of single cases (see Comparati
e Studies:
Method and Design). For the present purposes, how-
ever, case study methods are defined to include both
within-case analysis of single cases and comparisons
between or among a small number of cases. This is not
an effort to claim wider meaning for the term ‘case
studies,’ but an outgrowth of the growing consensus
that the strongest means of drawing inferences from
case studies is the use of a combination of within-case
analysis and cross-case comparisons within a single
study or research program, although single case
studies can also play a role in theory development. As
for the term ‘qualitative methods,’ this is sometimes
used to encompass both case studies carried out with a
positivist view of the philosophy of science and those
implemented with a postmodern or interpretive view.
This present article hews to the traditional terminology
in focusing on ‘case studies’ as that subset of quali-
tative methods that has adopted a largely positivist
framework.
2. The Historical De
elopment of Case Study
Methods
Case study methods have developed through several
phases over the last three decades. Prior to the 1970s,
‘case studies’ consisted primarily of historical studies
of particular events, countries, or phenomena, with
little effort to cumulate results or progressively develop
theories (Verba 1967). Throughout the 1970s, how-
ever, scholars who were dissatisfied with the state of
case study methods, and encouraged by the example of
the formalization of statistical methods, began to
formalize case study methods.
First, Adam Przeworski and Henry Teune (1970)
clarified the logic of ‘most similar’ and ‘least similar’
case comparisons. In the former comparison, which
draws on the logic of John Stuart Mill’s method of
difference and mimics the experimental method, the
researcher compares two cases that are similar in all
but one independent variable and that differ in the
outcome variable. Such a comparison may be con-
sistent with the inference that the difference in the
single independent variable that varies between the
cases accounts for the difference in the dependent
variable (although for a variety of reasons discussed
below, this inference may be spurious). In a com-
parison of least similar cases, which draws on Mill’s
method of agreement, the researcher compares two
cases that differ in all but one independent variable but
that have the same value on the dependent variable. If,
1514
Table 1
Types of case studies
Lijphart Eckstein
atheoretical configurative-ideographic
interpretative disciplined-configurative
hypothesis generating heuristic
deviant ?
theory-confirming\ crucial, most-likely,
infirming least-likely
for example, we find that teenagers are ‘difficult’ in
both tribal societies and industrialized societies, we
might be tempted to infer that it is the nature of
teenagers rather than the nature of society that
accounts for the difficulty of teenagers.
Arend Lijphart (1971) and Harry Eckstein (1975)
contributed further to the formalization of case study
methods by clarifying the differences among various
types of case study research designs and theory-
building goals. These authors identified similar types,
although their terminology differs and Lijphart adds
an important type, the ‘deviant case,’ for which
Eckstein does not make explicit provision. Their types
of case studies correspond as shown in Table 1.
The atheoretical or configurative-ideographic case
study takes the form of a detailed narrative or ‘story’
presented in the form of a chronicle that purports to
illuminate how an event came about. Such a narrative
is highly specific and makes no explicit use of theory or
theory-related variables. Most case studies, however,
do have an explanatory purpose. These studies gene-
rally fall into the category of ‘disciplined-configu-
rative’ or ‘interpretive’ case studies, in which general
propositions are used, often implicitly, to explain
specific historical cases. Another variant of such case
studies is the use of cases as examples that illustrate a
theory.
Heuristic case studies seek to generate new hy-
potheses inductively from the study of particular cases.
Notably, statistical methods lack this capacity for
inductively generating hypotheses, and they typically
rely instead on hypotheses derived deductively or
borrowed from case study research. An especially
important type of case study for developing new
hypotheses is the ‘deviant’ case study. This is the study
of a case whose outcome is not predicted or explained
adequately by existing theories. Unless the outcome of
a deviant case turns out to be a consequence of
measurement error, the case is likely to be useful for
identifying variables that have been left out of existing
theories. Finally, researchers can use case studies to
test whether the outcomes and processes that theories
predict in particular cases are in fact evident.
Eckstein’s and Lijphart’s contributions demon-
strated that there was not just a single type of case
study, but many kinds of case study research designs
and many different theory-building purposes that they

could serve. Their treatments differed, however, in
that Lijphart relied greatly on statistical concepts and
language. He was thus skeptical of the value of single
case studies for building social science theories, and,
consistent with the widespread preference at the time
for ‘large N’ over ‘small n’ methods, he urged re-
searchers to consider several means of either decreas-
ing the number of variables in their models or
increasing the number of cases to be studied in order to
make use of statistical rather than case study methods.
This advice, however, raised the risk ‘conceptual
stretching’ (Sartori 1970), or of lumping together
dissimilar cases under the same definitions. Possibly
for this reason, Lijphart later placed greater emphasis
instead on the controlled comparison of most similar
to cases as a basis for causal inference (Lijphart 1975,
Collier 1993).
Eckstein, in contrast, focused on the use of case
studies for theory testing and argued that even single
case studies could provide tests that might strongly
support or impugn theories. In so doing, Eckstein
developed the idea of a ‘crucial case,’ or a case that
‘must closely fit a theory if one is to have confidence in
the theory’s validity, or, conversely, must not fit equally
well any rule contrary to that proposed’ (Eckstein
1975, his emphasis). Eckstein argued that true crucial
cases are rare, so he pointed to the alternative of ‘most
likely’ and ‘least likely’ cases. A most likely case is one
that is almost certain to fit a theory if the theory is true
for any cases at all. The failure of a theory to explain
a most likely case greatly undermines our confidence
in the theory. A least likely case, conversely, is a tough
test for a theory because it is a case in which the theory
makes only a weak prediction. A theory’s ability to
explain a least likely case is strong evidence in favor of
the theory. In this way, Eckstein argued, even single
case studies could greatly increase or decrease our
confidence in a theory or require that we alter its scope
conditions.
Alexander George (1979 a, 1979 b) further devel-
oped case study methods by refining ‘within-case’
analysis and cross-case comparisons in ways that help
each method compensate for the limits of the other.
George argued, as Mill himself had, that the ‘method
of difference’ and the corresponding practice of com-
parison of most similar cases could lead to spurious
inferences. One reason for this is that no two nonex-
perimental cases achieve the ideal of being similar in
all respects but one independent variable and the
outcome. Thus, there is always the danger that left-out
variables or residual differences in the values of the
independent variables account for the difference in
the outcomes of similar cases of (see Human–
En
ironment Relationship: Comparati
e Case Studies).
In addition, as Mill recognized, phenomena might be
characterized by what general systems theorists have
termed ‘equifinality,’ or the condition in which the
same outcome can arise through different causal
pathways or combinations of variables. Thus, there
Case Study: Methods and Analysis
might be no single necessary or sufficient variable for a
phenomenon: it might be that either ABC or DEF
causes Y, and that none of the variables A–F is itself
sufficient to cause Y (see Human–En
ironment Rela-
tionship: Comparati
e Case Studies). In such circum-
stances, pair-wise comparisons of cases might wrongly
reject variables that contribute to the outcome of
interest in conjunction with some contexts but not
with others, and might also accept as causal variables
that are in fact spurious.
To compensate for these limits of controlled com-
parison, George developed the ‘within case’ methods
of ‘congruence testing’ and ‘process tracing’ as means
of checking on whether inferences arrived at through
case comparisons were spurious (see Pattern Match-
ing: Methodology). In congruence testing, the re-
searcher checks whether the prediction a theory makes
in a case, in view of the values of the case’s independent
variables, is congruent with the actual outcome in the
case. In process tracing, the researcher examines
whether the causal process a theory hypothesizes in a
case is in fact evident in the sequence and values of the
intervening variables in that case. Thus, process
tracing might be used to test whether the residual
differences between two similar cases were causal or
spurious in producing a difference in these cases’
outcomes. Process tracing can perform a heuristic
function as well, generating new variables or hypo-
theses on the basis of sequences of events observed
inductively in cases.
George (1979 a, 1979 b) also systematized case study
procedures by developing what he called the method
of ‘structured focused comparison.’ In this method,
the researcher systematically: (a) specifies the research
problem and the class of events to be studied; (b)
defines the independent, dependent, and intervening
variables of the relevant theories; (c) selects the cases
to be studied and compared; (d) decides how best to
characterize variance in the independent and depen-
dent variables; and (e) formulates a detailed set of
standard questions to be applied to each case. In
addition, consistent with his emphasis on equifinality,
George argued that case studies could be especially
useful in developing what he called ‘typological
theories,’ or contingent generalizations on ‘the
ariety
of different causal patterns that can occur for the
phenomena in question … [and] the conditions under
which each distincti
e type of causal patterns occurs’
(George 1979a, his emphasis). He thus advocated a
kind of ‘building block’ approach to the development
of theories in which each case, while rendered in terms
of theoretical variables, might prove to be a distinctive
causal pathway to the outcome of interest.
In the 1980s and 1990s, thousands of books and
articles made use of these improvements in case study
methods in a wide variety of social science research
programs. Meanwhile, scholars continued to elaborate
case study methods and articulate the ways in which
they differed from statistical methods. David Collier,
1515
Case Study: Methods and Analysis
reviewing the development of case study and com-
parative methods, argued that these methods have
advantages in defining and measuring qualitative
variables in conceptually valid ways and fore-
stalling the problem of conceptual stretching (Collier
1993). Charles Ragin argued that qualitative methods
were also better than statistical methods at accounting
for equifinality and complex interaction effects. Al-
though statistical methods can model several kinds of
interaction effects, Ragin noted, they can do so only at
the cost of requiring a larger sample size, and models
of nonlinear interactions rapidly become complex and
difficult to interpret. Ragin also introduced the method
of Qualitative Comparative Analysis, which uses
Boolean algebra to reduce a series of comparisons of
cases to the minimum number of logical statements or
hypotheses that entail the results of all the cases
compared (Ragin 1987). This method, he argues,
makes comparisons among cases in ways that treat
them inherently as configurations of variables, and
that thus allow for the possibility of equifinality and
complex interactions (see Configurational Analysis).
Both Collier and Ragin also noted the limitations of
case study methods, including the potential for inde-
terminacy when attempting to sort out rival explan-
ations in a small number of cases, the difficulty of
attaining a detailed understanding of more than a few
cases, and the inability to make broad generalizations
on the basis of small numbers of cases.
3. New De
elopments in Case Study Methods
The thousands of applications of case study methods
in the last two decades have provided fertile ground
for further methodological refinements. Three key
recent developments include the strengthening of
linkages between case study methods and the phil-
osophy of science, the elaboration of the concept of
typological theories, and the emergence of elements of
consensus on the comparative advantages and limita-
tions of case study methods.
3.1 Case Studies and the Philosophy of Science
With regard to the philosophy of science, the ‘scientific
realist’ school of thought has emphasized that causal
mechanisms, or independent stable factors that under
certain conditions link causes to effects, are important
to causal explanation (Little 1998). This has resonated
with case study researchers’ use of process tracing to
uncover evidence of causal mechanisms at work. It has
also provided a philosophical counterpoint to at-
tempts by researchers from the statistical tradition to
place ‘causal effects,’ or the expected difference in
outcomes brought about by the change in a single
independent variable, at the center of causal expla-
nation (King et al. 1994). Case study researchers
have argued that both causal mechanisms, which are
1516
more easily addressed by case studies, and causal
effects, which are best assessed through statistical
means, are essential to the development of causal
theories and causal explanations (George and Bennett
2001).
Another relevant development in the philosophy of
science has been the resurgence of interest in Bayesian
logic, or the logic of using new data to update prior
confidence levels assigned to hypotheses. Bayesian
logic differs from that of most statistics, which eschew
reliance on prior probabilities. Eckstein’s crucial, most
likely, and least likely case study designs implicitly use
a Bayesian logic, assigning prior probabilities to the
likelihood of particular outcomes (McKeown 1999).
One new development here is the refinement of
Eckstein’s approach, taking into consideration the
likelihood of an outcome not just in view of one
theory, but in the presence of alternative hypotheses.
If a case is ‘most likely’ for a theory, and if the
alternative hypotheses make the same prediction, then
the theory will be strongly impugned if the prediction
does not prove true. The failure of the theory cannot
be blamed on the influence of the variables highlighted
by the alternative hypotheses. Conversely, if a theory
makes only a weak prediction in a ‘least likely’ case,
the alternative hypotheses make a different prediction,
but if the first theory’s prediction proves true, this is
the strongest possible evidence in favor of the theory
(Van Evera 1997). This helps address the central
problem of a Bayesian approach—that of assigning and
justifying prior probabilities—even if it does not fully
resolve it.
The continuing development of the logic of hypo-
thesis testing has also been relevant to case study
methods (see Hypothesis Testing: Methodology and
Limitations). On this topic, Imre Lakatos argued that
a theory can be considered progressive only if it
predicts and later corroborates ‘new facts,’ or novel
empirical content not anticipated by other theories
(Lakatos 1976). This criterion helps provide a stan-
dard for judging whether process tracing, the desig-
nation of new subtypes, and the proposal of new
theories from heuristic case studies are being done in a
progressive or regressive way. It also provides a
philosophical basis for arguing that a hypothesis can
be derived from one set of observations within a case
and then to some extent tested against the ‘new facts’
or previously unexamined or unexpected data that it
predicts within that same case, although independent
corroboration in other cases is usually advisable as
well (Collier 1993).
3.2 Typological Theories and ‘Fuzzy Logic’
A second recent development in case study methods
has been the elaboration of the concept of typological
theory. Typological theories occupy a middle ground
between covering laws, or highly general abstract
propositions, and causal mechanisms. Typological

theories identify recurring conjunctions of mechan-
isms and provide hypotheses on the pathways through
which they produce effects. Thus, like QCA, typolo-
gical theories treat cases as configurations. Unlike
QCA, they do not attempt to reduce the number of
theoretical statements about the variables, but retain a
diverse and admittedly complex set of contingent
generalizations, with potentially one generalization
per type. Consequently, typological theories are well
suited to modeling equifinality.
To construct typological theories, researchers first
specify the variables and use them to define the
typological space, or the set of all mathematically
possible combinations of the variables (this is some-
times termed a truth table in the philosophy of science).
At first this may seem to produce an unmanageably
large number of combinations: a model with five
dichotomous variables, for example, would have 32
possible types. However, once the researcher begins to
categorize extant cases in a preliminary way into
particular types, it often becomes possible to narrow
the range of cases of interest for study. Many types
may remain empty, with no extant cases. Some types
may be overdetermined for the outcome of interest,
and hence not worthy of study unless they have an
unexpected outcome. From among the cases and types
that remain, the researcher can use the preliminary
categorization of cases within the typological space to
help identify most likely, least likely, most similar,
least similar, and crucial cases for study. Cases in the
typological space with unexpected outcomes, or de-
viant cases, can help identify new causal pathways that
can be added to the existing theory in a kind of
‘building block’ approach (George and Bennett
2001). A related development concerns the concept of
‘fuzzy logic’ (Ragin 2000). Fuzzy logic treats cases as
configurations but rather than using dichotomous or
trichotomous variables and categorizations of cases, it
allows the use of scaling to give a score on the extent to
which a case fits into a certain type. In other respects,
the use of fuzzy logic proceeds in ways much like those
of typological theories.
3.3 The Emerging Consensus on the Strengths and
Limits of Case Study Methods
A third development is that while several debates on
case study methods continue, others have moved
toward synthesis or even closure, and the overall
picture is of an emerging consensus on the advantages
limitations of case study methods. As noted above,
researchers from a variety of methodological tradi-
tions have recognized that because case studies can
include many observations, they do not suffer from an
inherent degrees of freedom problem. At the same
time, it is also widely agreed that particular case
studies may suffer from indeterminacy, or an inability
to exclude all but one explanation on the basis of
Case Study: Methods and Analysis
available process tracing evidence (Njolstad 1990).
When this occurs, it may still be possible to narrow the
number of plausible explanations, and it is also
important to indicate as clearly as possible the extent
to which the remaining hypotheses appear to be
complementary, competing, and incommensurate in
explaining the case.
Second, most case study researchers have readily
acknowledged the limits of Mill’s methods. Ragin’s
alternative of qualitative comparative analysis makes
less restrictive assumptions, but its results are highly
sensitive to changes in the measurement or coding of a
single case (Goldthorpe 1997). There has thus been a
movement toward typological theories and fuzzy logic,
which make still less restrictive assumptions than QCA
and are not so sensitive to the results of a single case.
In addition, there is growing consensus that the use of
within-case methods of analysis helps provide a check
on the potential spuriousness of cross-case compari-
sons (Collier 1993, Mahoney 1999, George and
Bennett 2001). Case study researchers consequently
seldom if ever rely on case comparisons alone.
Third, there is growing recognition that the case
selection criteria necessary for statistical studies are in
some respects inappropriate for case studies. Random
selection in a case study research design, for example,
can result in worse biases than intentional selection
(King et al. 1994). There is also increasing under-
standing that, consistent with the reliance of some case
study designs on a Bayesian logic, case studies are
sometimes intentionally selected not to be represen-
tative of some wide population but to provide the
strongest possible inferences on particular theories
(McKeown 1999). There is still disagreement between
those who warn against any selection on the dependent
variable (King et al. 1994) and those who argue
that selection on the dependent variable is appropriate
for some research objectives (Collier and Mahoney
1996, Ragin 2000, George and Bennett 2001). Related
to this is a continuing disagreement over whether
single case studies can make only limited contributions
to theory building (King et al. 1994), or whether
single case studies have indeed reshaped entire re-
search programs (Rogowski 1995). There is wider
agreement, however, that selection bias is potentially
more severe in case studies than statistical studies
because biased selection of case studies can overstate
as well as understate the relationship between the
independent and dependent variables (Collier and
Mahoney 1996).
On the whole discussions of these issues have
moved toward an emerging consensus on the com-
parative advantages and limitations of case study
methods. These methods’ advantages include the
conceptualization, operationalization, and measure-
ment of qualitative variables (conceptual validity), the
avoidance of conceptual stretching, the heuristic iden-
tification of new variables and hypotheses (often
through study of deviant cases), the assessment of
1517
Case Study: Methods and Analysis
whether statistical generalizations offer plausible or
spurious explanations of individual cases, the incor-
poration of equifinality and complex interactions
effects, and the inferences made possible by combining
within-case and cross-case analyses (Collier 1993,
Munck 1998, George and Bennett 2001). It is possible
that new statistical methods may be able to improve
upon the statistical treatment of equifinality and
interaction effects, and at least narrow the gap in the
treatment of this issue, but the other comparative
advantages of case study methods appear to be
inherent in their differences from statistical methods.
The limits of case study methods include their
inappropriateness for judging the relative frequency or
representativeness of cases, their weakness at per-
forming partial correlations and establishing causal
effects or causal weight, the necessarily narrow and
contingent nature of their generalizations, and the
danger that selection bias can be more catastrophic
than in statistical studies (Collier 1993, King et al.
1994, Munck 1998, George and Bennett 2001). For-
tunately, these are precisely the strengths of statistical
studies.
4. Future Directions in Case Study Methods
Just as the formalization of case study methods in the
1970s inspired a generation of more sophisticated
research, the recent further refinements in these
methods are likely to lead to still greater sophistication
in their use in the social, biological, and even physical
sciences. The increasingly evident complementarity of
case study and statistical methods is likely to lead
toward more collaborative work by scholars using
various methods. The recent interest among rational
choice theorists in using case studies to test their
theories, for example, is an important step in this
direction (Bates et al. 1998). Because case studies,
statistical methods, and formal modeling are all
increasingly sophisticated, however, it is becoming less
likely that a single researcher can be adept at more
than one set of methods while also attaining a cutting-
edge theoretical and empirical knowledge of their
field. Collaboration might therefore take the form of
several researchers working together using different
methods, or of researchers more self-consciously
building on the findings generated by those using
different methods. In either form, effective collab-
oration requires that even as they become expert in
one methodological approach, scholars must also
become conversant with alternative approaches, aware
of their strengths and limits, and capable of an
informed reading of their substantive results.
See also: Biographical Methodology: Psycholog-
ical Perspectives; Case Study: Logic; Case-oriented
Research; Configurational Analysis; Human–En-
vironment Relationship: Comparative Case Studies;
1518
Psychotherapy: Case Study; Single-case Experimental
Designs in Clinical Settings; Single-subject Designs:
Methodology
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A. Bennett
Case-oriented Research
1. Introduction
Case-oriented research focuses on interconnections
among parts and aspects within single cases. In this
approach, the researcher attempts to make sense of
each case as a singular, interpretable entity. In-depth
knowledge of the cases included in a study is con-
sidered a prerequisite for the examination of patterns
that might be observed across cases. Case-oriented
researchers often study one case at a time, but they
may also study multiple instances of a given phenom-
enon (e.g., comparable instances of ethnic conflict).
The distinctiveness of case-oriented research is ap-
parent when this approach is contrasted with the
variable-oriented approach, where researchers focus
more exclusively on cross-case patterns, without first
gaining an understanding of each case.
2. Goals of Case-oriented Research
Today social scientists tend to identify case-oriented
research with specific techniques of data collection
linked to the observation and analysis of singular cases
(e.g., direct observation of individuals at the micro
level and archival research on nation-states at the
macro level). While generally useful, the identity of
case-oriented research with specific techniques of data
collection is unfortunate, for it obscures basic differ-
ences between case-oriented research and conven-
tional variable-oriented research. More fundamental
than differences in methods of data collection is the
contrast between goals (Ragin 1987). Case-oriented
strategies are distinctive in that they are centrally
concerned with making sense of a relatively small
number of cases, selected because they are substan-
tively or theoretically significant in some way (Eckstein
1975). Conventional variable-oriented strategies, by
contrast, are centrally concerned with the problem of
assessing the relationship between aspects of cases
across a large number of generic ‘observations,’
usually with the goal of inferring general patterns that
hold for a population.
Case-oriented Research
For example, a researcher might use a case-oriented
approach in order to study a small number of firms in
an in-depth manner. Suppose these firms were all
thought to be unusually successful in retaining their
best employees while at the same time investing in
them and thus enhancing their potential value to
competing firms. To find out how they do it, a
researcher would have to conduct an in-depth study of
the firms in question. By contrast, a variable-oriented
researcher might study the predictors of variation in
rates of ‘employee retention’ across a large sample of
firms. Is it more a matter of firm or industry charac-
teristics? Do these two sets of factors interact? Useful
answers to these questions would be based on careful
analysis of relationships between variables, using data
drawn from a survey of a large number of firms—the
more (and the more varied), the better.
As these two examples show, what matters most is
the researcher’s starting point: does the researcher
seek to understand specific cases or to document
general patterns characterizing a population? This
contrast follows a longstanding division in all of
science, not just social science. Georg Henrik von
Wright argues in Explanation and Understanding
(1971) that there are two main traditions in the history
of ideas regarding the conditions an explanation must
satisfy in order to be considered scientifically re-
spectable. One tradition, which he calls ‘finalistic,’ is
anchored in the problem of making facts understand-
able. The other is called ‘causal-mechanistic’ and is
anchored in the problem of prediction. The contrast
between case-oriented and variable-oriented research
closely parallels this fundamental division. In the two
examples just described, the first researcher uses the
case-oriented approach in order to make certain facts
understandable, for example, the spectacular success
of a handful of firms in retaining their most valuable
employees; the second researcher uses the variable-
oriented approach in order to derive an equation
predicting levels of retention, based on a large sample
of firms, and to draw inferences from this equation to
an entire population.
Once the distinction between case-oriented and
variable-oriented research is established and their
contrasting goals acknowledged, it is clear that the
importance of techniques of data collection as bearers
of the ‘case-oriented vs. variable-oriented’ dis-
tinction begins to fade. For example, it is clear that a
researcher using case-oriented methods to study a
handful of firms might benefit from conducting sur-
veys of their employees and performing a conventional
variable-oriented analysis of these data. The results of
the survey would contribute to this researcher’s depth
of knowledge about the firms in question, just as
interviewing their top executives or studying their
archives would contribute useful information. Like-
wise, it is clear that the researcher using variable-
oriented methods to predict rates of retention could
benefit from interviews of top executives or personnel
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