REVIEW OF CASE STUDY RESEARCH Design & Methods

Author: Robert K. Yin

BOOK 5th Edition – 2014

Sage Publication
 REVIEW AGENDA:
1. Title, Publisher, How Many Pages
2. Author
3. Rate of the Book
4. Summary of the Book
5. What are the most important or most useful things that you have learnt from the book related to
your research progress/proposal/methods or research in general
6. Explain the challenges/fun things about reading/reviewing this book
 THE BOOK’S IDENTITY

Title : CASE STUDY RESEARCH: Design and Methods

Publisher : SAGE Publications, 5th Edition, 2014

Total Pages : 282 pages

Author : Robert K. Yin

Rate of this Book : 4 from 5

SUMMARY OF THE BOOK

This book consist of SIX chapters, as follow:

Chapter 1 – Getting Started: How to Know Whether and When to Use the Case
Study as a Research Method
Case study research is one of several forms of social science research.
Doing case study research would be the preferred method, compared to others, in
situation when:
a) The main research questions are “how” or “why” questions
b) A researcher has little or no control over behavioral events
c) The focus of study is contemporary (as opposed to entirely historical)
phenomenon
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (2)

Chapter 1 – getting started has addressed some of the major concerns about case
study research, suggesting possible responses to these concerns.
However, we must all work hard to overcome the problems of doing case study
research, including the recognition that some of us were not meant, by skill or
disposition, to do such research in the first place.
Case study research is remarkably hard, even though case studies have traditionally
been considered to be “soft” research, possibly because researchers have not
followed systematic procedures.
By offering an array of such procedures, this book tries to make case study research
easier to follow and your own case study better.
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (3)

Chapter 2 – Designing Case Studies

A research design is the logic that links the data to be collected (and the conclusion
to be drawn) to the initial questions of study.
Every empirical study has an implicit, if not explicit, research design.
Articulating a “theory” about what is being studied and what is to be learned helps
to strengthen a research design when doing case study research.
Good theoretical propositions also lay the groundwork for generalizing the findings
from the case study to other situations, by making analytic rather than statistical
generalizations
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (4)

Critical to the design will be to define the “case” or unit of analysis to be studied, as
well as to set some limits or bounds to the case.
The researchers can then examine the quality of your emerging design in relation to
set some tests commonly used in social science research:
a) Construct Validity
b) Internal Validity
c) External Validity
d) Reliability
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (5)

Among the specific case study designs, four major types follow a 2x2 matrix.
1) The first pair, consist of single-case and multiple-case designs.
2) The second pair, which can occur in combination with either of the first pair,
distinguished between holistic and embedded designs

The case study research also can be used in combination with other methods, as part
of a larger mixed method study.
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (6)

Chapter 3 – Preparing To Collect Case Study Evidence

 Preparing to do a case study start with a researcher’s prior skills and values and
covers the preparation and training for the specific case study (including procedures
for protecting human subjects).
With regards to skills, many people incorrectly believe they are sufficiently skilled to
do case study research because, they think the method is easy to do.
In fact, case study research is among the hardest types of research because of the
absence of well-documented procedures.
Case study researchers therefore, need to feel comfortable in addressing procedural
uncertainties that may arise during the course of a study.
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (7)

Other desirable traits include the ability to ask good questions, “listen”, be adaptive,
have a firm grasp of the issues being studied, and know how to avoid bias and bring
high ethical standard to the research.
A researcher can prepare to do a high-quality case study through intensive training.
The most important part of the training will cover the development of a case study
protocol, to guide the actual data collection.
The protocol is especially critical if the case study uses a multiple-cases design or
involves multiple researchers, or both.
Two final preparatory steps include the screening of candidate cases to be part of
the case study, and the conduct of a pilot case study.
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (8)

Chapter 4 – Collecting Case Study Evidence

Case study evidence may came from six sources, they are:
1) Documents
2) Archival Records
3) Interviews
4) Direct Observation
5) Participant-Observation
6) Physical Artifacts
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (9)

Using six sources calls for mastering different data collection procedures.
Throughout the researches objectives may be collect data about actual human events
and behavior or to capture the distinctive perspectives of the participants in your
case study (or both).
These extended inquiries mean that case study data collection can require much
fieldwork time, including the conduct of prolonged interviews occurring over multiple
sittings.
In addition to appreciating how to work with the six sources, four overriding
principles are important to any data collection effort in doing case study research.
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (10)

The four overriding principles are:

1) To use multiple sources of evidence – evidence from two or more sources,
converging on the same findings.
2) To create a case study database – a formal assembly of evidence, distinct from
the final case study report, containing all your case study notes, the documents
and tabular materials from the field, and your preliminary narratives or memos
about the data.
3) Cover the researchers sensitivity in maintain a chain of evidence and exercising
care when using electronic sources of evidence, - such as social media
communications.
4) By incorporating all these principles into your case study, you will increase its
quality substantially.
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (11)

Chapter 5 – Analyzing Case Study Evidence

Data analysis consists of:
1) Examining
2) Categorizing
3) Tabulating
4) Testing
5) Recombining Evidence, to produce empirically based findings.
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (12)
Analyzing case study evidence is especially difficult because, the techniques still have
not been well defined.
The researchers can start their own analysis by “playing” with the data and
searching for promising patterns, insights, or concepts – the goal being to define your
priorities for what to analyze and why.
Any of the general strategies then can be used in practicing five specific techniques
for analyzing case studies:
a) Pattern matching
b) Explanation building
c) Time-series analysis
d) Logic models
e) Cross-case synthesis
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (13)

Chapter 6 – Reporting Case Studies

Sharing the conclusions from a case study, whether in writing or orally, means
bringing its results and finding to closure.
Regardless of the form of the report, similar steps underlie the sharing process,
including identifying the audience for the report, defining its compositional format,
and having drafts reviewed by others.
However, going beyond the typical procedural reminders that you can find in other
guidance about report writing.
The final case study may appear independently or as part of a larger, mixed
methods study.
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK (14)

In either situation, creating a case study report is one of the most rewarding aspects
of doing case studies.
The best general advice is to start drafting preliminary portions of your case study
early (four possibilities are identified), rather than waiting until the end of the data
analysis process.
A case study report also presents a choice regarding the disclosure or anonymity of
case identities.
A final set of suggestions tries to define what might make your case study exemplary,
and not just run-of-the-mill.
WHAT ARE THE MOST USEFUL THINGS FROM THIS
BOOK FOR MY RESEARCH PROPOSAL
1) Due to my dissertation research are to investigates what kind of learning
organization characteristics and uniqueness and also to discover how does general
description about learning organization style from Indonesian unicorn (Gojek,
Tokopedia, Traveloka dan Bukalapak), thus I need to understanding deeply and
interpret the findings from Indonesian unicorn.
2) Based on my research objective and research question to discover and investigate
about WHAT and HOW at specific context of research object, this book help me
to better understand about case study research.
3) Giving me guidance about step-by-step to do qualitative research using case
study.
4) One of the weakness of this book is not giving detailed information about the
tools that could used in case study research.
THE CHALLENGES AND FUN THINGS READING
THIS BOOK

It was very interesting and enlightening read this book, because in social science
research I will gaining interpretation about “what”, “how” and “why”, thus this book is
very important to make me much more understanding about qualitative research using
case study method