Building Theories From Case Study Research - This paper describes the process of inducting theory using case studies from specifying the research questions to reaching closure. Some features of the process, such as problem definition and construct validation, are similar to hypothesis-testing research. Others, such as within-case analysis and replication logic, are unique to the inductive, case-oriented process. Overall, the process described here is highly iterative and tightly linked to data. This research approach is especially appropriate in new topic areas. The resultant theory is often novel, testable, and empirically valid. Finally, framebreaking insights, the tests of good theory (e.g., parsimony, logical coherence), and convincing grounding in the evidence are the key criteria for evaluating this type of research.

Building theories from case study research

Relationship marketing—establishing, developing, and maintaining successful relational exchanges—constitutes a major shift in marketing theory and practice. After conceptualizing relationship marke...

The Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing

Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

A general inductive approach for analysis of qualitative evaluation data is described. The purposes for using an inductive approach are to (a) condense raw textual data into a brief, summary format; (b) establish clear links between the evaluation or research objectives and the summary findings derived from the raw data; and (c) develop a framework of the underlying structure of expe- riences or processes that are evident in the raw data. The general inductive approach provides an easily used and systematic set of procedures for analyzing qualitative data that can produce reliable and valid findings. Although the general inductive approach is not as strong as some other analytic strategies for theory or model development, it does provide a simple, straightforward approach for deriving findings in the context of focused evaluation questions. Many evaluators are likely to find using a general inductive approach less complicated than using other approaches to qualitative data analysis.

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A General Inductive Approach for Analyzing Qualitative Evaluation Data

Marketing theory and practice have focused persistently on exchange between buyers and sellers. Unfortunately, most of the research and too many of the marketing strategies treat buyer-seller excha...

Developing Buyer-Seller Relationships:

Basics of Qualitative Research

Exchange theories posit that trust has an important and favorable influence on dyadic interactions. This paper examines the notion that trust plays a key role in making a seller's tough bargaining strategy successful. In a bargaining experiment, we manipulated subjects' preconceptions about a seller's trustworthiness and bargaining toughness. As hypothesized, a seller's expected trustworthiness-plus-toughness in bargaining led to higher levels of buyer-seller cooperation and agreement and a higher level of buyer concessions.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/2489219

Influences on exchange processes: Buyers' preconceptions of a seller's trustworthiness and bargaining toughness.

Two of the predominant approaches to gaining knowledge in the social sciences are the positivist and interpretive approaches. Different philosophical assumptions and goals underlie both. We are better able to see the strengths and weaknesses in the two approaches by comparing and contrasting different perspectives; this juxtaposition is essential if we are to improve the ways in which we study consumers. In this article, we demonstrate the influence of assumptions on different research processes, cite problems inherent in both perspectives, point out the range of positions within the interpretive approach, and discuss the ramifications of diverse ways of seeking knowledge for consumer research.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/2489157

Alternative Ways of Seeking Knowledge in Consumer Research

Critical theory is presented as an interdisciplinary approach to seeking knowledge about consumers. Critical theory holds that social problems often result from groups in society being constrained by social structures and processes that they themselves construct and maintain. Critical research involves grasping both the intersubjective understandings of the groups involved and the historical-empirical understanding of the potentially constraining objective social conditions. Contradictions that are discovered provide the stimuli for change. Through the process of critique and dialogue, the critical researcher tries to help people imagine alternative social organizations that facilitate the development of human potential free from constraints.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2489550.pdf

The Critical Imagination: Emancipatory Interests in Consumer Research

Almost half of all consumers read below a sixth-grade level, yet we know little about how these consumers get their needs met in the marketplace. The goal of this qualitative study was to examine the intersection of literacy skills and consumption activities and identify the coping strategies that low literate consumers employ. Those informants who could challenge the stigma of low literacy and employ a range of coping skills were better able to get their needs met. Thus, consumer literacy is conceptualized as a social practice that includes reading and writing skills but also involves the ability to manage one's identity and leverage personal, situational, and social coping skills.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/429603

Julie L. Ozanne

Papers

Basics of Qualitative Research

Influences on exchange processes: Buyers' preconceptions of a seller's trustworthiness and bargaining toughness.

Alternative Ways of Seeking Knowledge in Consumer Research

The Critical Imagination: Emancipatory Interests in Consumer Research

The Low Literate Consumer