Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research

• Authors: Flyvbjerg B.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The author examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (1) Theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (2) One cannot generalize from a single case, therefore the single case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (3) The case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, while other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (4) The case study contains a bias toward verification; and (5) It is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. He 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 that a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of more good quality case studies.

Keywords

EN

CASE SELECTION; CASE-STUDY RESEARCH; HYPOTHESIS TESTING

Discipline

• SOCIOLOGY: SOCIOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Studia Socjologiczne
• Year: 2005
• Issue: 2(177)
• Pages: 41-69
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Flyvbjerg B.

• B. Flyvbjerg, Aalborg University, Department of Development and Planing, Fibigerstraede 11, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

05PLAAAA0031759