Aalborg Universitet
Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research
Flyvbjerg, Bent
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Qualitative Inquiry
DOI (link to publication from Publisher):
10.1177/1077800405284363
Publication date:
2006
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Citation for published version (APA):
Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 12(2), 219-245.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800405284363
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10.1177/1077800405284363Qualitative InquiryFlyvbjerg / Case-Study Research Misunderstandings
Five Misunderstandings
About Case-Study
Research
Bent Flyvbjerg
Aalborg University, Denmark
This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study
research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge;
(b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study
cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful
for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for
hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias
toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case stud-
ies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and
concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large
number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic
production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective
one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number
of good case studies.
Keywords: case study; case selection; critical cases; validity in case studies
W
hen I first became interested in in-depth case-study research, I was
trying to understand how power and rationality shape each other and
form the urban environments in which we live (Flyvbjerg, 1998). It was clear
to me that to understand a complex issue such as this, in-depth case-study
research was necessary. It was equally clear, however, that my teachers and
colleagues kept dissuading me from employing this particular research
methodology.
“You cannot generalize from a single case,” some would say, “and social
science is about generalizing.” Others would argue that the case study may be
well suited for pilot studies but not for full-fledged research schemes. Others
again would comment that the case study is subjective, giving too much
scope for the researcher’s own interpretations. Thus, the validity of case
studies would be wanting, they argued.
At first, I did not know how to respond to such claims, which clearly
formed the conventional wisdom about case-study research. I decided, there
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219
Qualitative Inquiry
Volume 12 Number 2
April 2006 219-245
© 2006 Sage Publications
10.1177/1077800405284363
http://qix.sagepub.com
hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
fore, to find out where the claims come from and whether they are correct.
This article contains what I discovered.
The Conventional Wisdom About Case-Study Research
Looking up case study in the Dictionary of Sociology as a beginning, I
found the following in full citation:
Case Study. The detailed examination of a single example of a class of phe
-
nomena, a case study cannot provide reliable information about the broader
class, but it may be useful in the preliminary stages of an investigation since it
provides hypotheses, which may be tested systematically with a larger number
of cases. (Abercrombie, Hill, & Turner, 1984, p. 34)
1
This description is indicative of the conventional wisdom of case-study
research, which if not directly wrong, is so oversimplified as to be grossly
misleading. It is correct that the case study is a “detailed examination of a sin-
gle example,” but as we see below, it is not true that a case study “cannot pro-
vide reliable information about the broader class.” It is also correct that a case
study can be used “in the preliminary stages of an investigation” to generate
hypotheses, but it is misleading to see the case study as a pilot method to be
used only in preparing the real study’s larger surveys, systematic hypotheses
testing, and theory building.
According to the conventional view, a case and a case study cannot be of
value in and of themselves; they need to be linked to hypotheses, following
the well-known hypothetico-deductive model of explanation. Mattei Dogan
and Dominique Pelassy (1990) put it like this: “One can validly explain a par
-
ticular case only on the basis of general hypotheses. All the rest is uncontrol
-
lable, and so of no use” (p. 121; see also Diamond, 1996, p. 6). In a similar
manner, the early Donald Campbell did not mince words when he relegated
single-case studies to the methodological trash heap:
Such studies have such a total absence of control as to be of almost no scientific
value. ...Anyappearance of absolute knowledge, or intrinsic knowledge about
singular isolated objects, is found to be illusory upon analysis. ...Itseems
well-nigh unethical at the present time to allow, as theses or dissertations in
education, case studies of this nature (i.e., involving a single group observed at
one time only). (Campbell & Stanley, 1966, pp. 6-7)
If you read such criticism of a certain methodology enough times, or if you
hear your thesis advisers repeat it, you begin to believe it may be true. This is
220 Qualitative Inquiry
what happened to me, and it made me uncertain about case-study methodol
-
ogy. As I continued my research, however, I found out that Campbell had
later made a 180-degree turn in his views of the case study and had become
one of the strongest proponents of this method. I eventually found, with the
help of Campbell’s later works (e.g., Campbell, 1975) and other works like
them, that the problems with the conventional wisdom about case-study
research can be summarized in five misunderstandings or oversimplifica
-
tions about the nature of such research:
Misunderstanding 1: General, theoretical (context-independent) knowledge is
more valuable than concrete, practical (context-dependent) knowledge.
Misunderstanding 2: One cannot generalize on the basis of an individual case;
therefore, the case study cannot contribute to scientific development.
Misunderstanding 3: The case study is most useful for generating hypotheses; that
is, in the first stage of a total research process, whereas other methods are more
suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building.
Misunderstanding 4: The case study contains a bias toward verification, that is, a
tendency to confirm the researcher’s preconceived notions.
Misunderstanding 5: It is often difficult to summarize and develop general propo-
sitions and theories on the basis of specific case studies.
These five misunderstandings indicate that it is theory, reliability, and valid-
ity that are at issue; in other words, the very status of the case study as a scien-
tific method. In what follows, I focus on these five misunderstandings and
correct them one by one. First, however, I outline the role of cases in human
learning.
The Role of Cases in Human Learning
To understand why the conventional view of case-study research is prob
-
lematic, we need to grasp the role of cases and theory in human learning. Here
two points can be made. First, the case study produces the type of context-
dependent knowledge that research on learning shows to be necessary to
allow people to develop from rule-based beginners to virtuoso experts. Sec
-
ond, in the study of human affairs, there appears to exist only context-
dependent knowledge, which, thus, presently rules out the possibility of
epistemic theoretical construction. The full argument behind these two
points can be found in Flyvbjerg (2001, chaps. 2-4). For reasons of space, I
can give only an outline of the argument here. At the outset, however, we can
assert that if the two points are correct, it will have radical consequences for
Flyvbjerg / Case-Study Research Misunderstandings 221
the conventional view of the case study in research and teaching. This view
would then be problematic.
Phenomenological studies of human learning indicate that for adults,
there exists a qualitative leap in their learning process from the rule-governed
use of analytical rationality in beginners to the fluid performance of tacit
skills in what Pierre Bourdieu (1977) called virtuosos and Hubert Dreyfus
and Stuart Dreyfus (1986) called true human experts. Here we may note that
most people are experts in a number of everyday social, technical, and intel
-
lectual skills such as giving a gift, riding a bicycle, or interpreting images on
a television screen, whereas only few reach the level of true expertise for
more specialized skills such as playing chess, composing a symphony, or fly
-
ing a fighter jet.
Common to all experts, however, is that they operate on the basis of inti
-
mate knowledge of several thousand concrete cases in their areas of exper
-
tise. Context-dependent knowledge and experience are at the very heart of
expert activity. Such knowledge and expertise also lie at the center of the case
study as a research and teaching method or to put it more generally still, as a
method of learning. Phenomenological studies of the learning process there-
fore emphasize the importance of this and similar methods: It is only because
of experience with cases that one can at all move from being a beginner to
being an expert. If people were exclusively trained in context-independent
knowledge and rules, that is, the kind of knowledge that forms the basis of
textbooks and computers, they would remain at the beginner’s level in the
learning process. This is the limitation of analytical rationality: It is inade-
quate for the best results in the exercise of a profession, as student, researcher,
or practitioner.
In a teaching situation, well-chosen case studies can help the student
achieve competence, whereas context-independent facts and rules will bring
the student just to the beginner’s level. Only few institutions of higher learn
-
ing have taken the consequence of this. Harvard University is one of them.
Here both teaching and research in the professional schools are modeled to a
wide extent on the understanding that case knowledge is central to human
learning (Christensen, 1987; Cragg, 1940).
At one stage in my research, I was invited to Harvard to learn about case
methodology “in action.” During my stay, it became clear to me that if I were
going to aspire at becoming an expert in my field of expertise, and if I wanted
to be an effective help to my students in their learning processes, I would
need to master case methodology in research and teaching. My stay at Har
-
vard also became a major step forward in shedding my uncertainties regard
-
ing the conventional wisdom about cases and case studies. At Harvard, I
found the literature and people who effectively argued, “Forget the conven
-
222 Qualitative Inquiry
