Why a comparative case study?

The research design adopted is both an analysis of the national policy context and landscape for domestic retrofit and a comparative case study of three domestic retrofit initiatives in three different cities: the Energy Saving Co-operative in Birmingham, the Manchester Carbon Co-op in Manchester and the Bristol Home Energy Upgrade in Bristol. For an exploratory research project such as this, highly structured surveying or quantitative

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research to respond to themes and issues as they emerged from the fieldwork. A more traditional qualitative research approach without the case studies may have given a good overall impression of the range of perspectives involved in domestic retrofit, perhaps at a national scale, but this would have missed some of the valuable place-based and specifically urban elements to the research. It could be argued that a single urban case study could have tackled these elements, but a desire to take some abstracted lessons with a hope of being able to tentatively generalize or transfer them to other research would have been more difficult with only one case. This section will outline the reasons for the comparative approach, the case-based approach, and the rationale behind selecting those particular cities and those particular initiatives.

Case-based approach

The decision to take a case-based approach derived from the need for an approach that would allow the depth and detail necessary to present a valid representation of the domestic retrofit initiatives emerging in each city context. As Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) describe, in relation to reflexivity, it is the totality of the social phenomena under investigation that we are interested in, including our own ideas and views. Even at first glance at the community-based domestic retrofit initiative emerging in Birmingham, the network of organisations, resources and funding appeared extremely complex. With so many different interests at play, a case-based approach utilising a variety of data collection methods allows the illumination of varying and contested experiences of the same scenario (May, 2011). Arguably, it is virtually impossible to fully ‘know’ the social world however we approach the problem (Crang, 2002), but the idea of aiming for as full, open and frank an exploration of a given issue as possible is a positive one.

What was sought was not a consensus on the experience (unless it happens to emerge) but to understand how different social interests are represented by or embodied in retrofit- related activity in different places and in relation to particular contextual features that are multi-scalar and interconnected, such as incumbent organisations, funding structures, supply chains, household energy use and behaviour. It also seeks to clarify the relationships between these contextual features and different objects involved in the initiatives, such as houses, technologies, financial tools, etc (Sayer, 2000). Identifying, understanding and

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explaining those complex interrelationships would be very difficult without gathering a wide variety of viewpoints, from within and without the initiatives, and engaging with a variety of sources, thus embracing the intersubjectivity that is unique to the case-study process (Henn et al, 2009).

But there are key aims and objectives that cannot be achieved by a single, in depth case study, and those relate to the goal of moving beyond describing the initiatives and their relation to contextual features and into the realms of explaining the differences between the initiatives as pertains to their contexts and scales of action, which requires comparison.

The Comparative Element

In keeping with the realist mantra, the case-based approach allows the data gathering process to be sensitive to contextual intricacies whilst retaining the relevance of ‘bigger’ processes in an ‘encompassing approach’ that looks at instances in different locations whilst reflecting on their relationship to the overall system (Ward, 2010). The statement that “there are shared, universally identifiable pressures and trends working across all

industrialised societies”(Perry, in May 2011, p86) captures the importance of those wider processes and structures, which the ‘landscape’ concept is particularly helpful for

articulating, without attributing a specific scale (national, international) to it until the data has been collected and analysed.

The comparative element to the research design thus enables an exploration of diversity in outcomes among similar cases (Ragin, 1994): the cases being experimental domestic retrofit initiatives in English cities. It is tentatively designed to allow the development of middle- range theories about interurban diversity within the UK national context, and deepen the appreciation for understanding the role of context and conditions at different scales within the wider body of knowledge about urban development (Ward, 2010).

The research does not generate grand theories for generalisation to all domestic retrofit experiments or all urban contexts, but develops explanations for different outcomes from a similar landscape, using domestic retrofit initiatives as a lens through which to examine the interactions between those structures, the mechanisms through which they work, and how the conditions and contexts that those mechanisms operate within affect the outcomes of the entire process to different extents and in different ways (Sayer, 2000). This aspect of

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theory development would be impossible to do without a comparative element, but theoretical aims are modest: the decision to deal with fewer than Eisenhardt’s (1989) ‘optimum’ of six cases has been taken in favour of retaining a greater level of depth and familiarity with the cases (Ragin, 1994), and the explanatory and descriptive concepts that emerge will naturally be closely linked to the empirical data. However, these theoretical developments may contribute to other comparative urban studies, or other forms of urban retrofit and organisational studies.

The need for theory development of some kind reflects a degree of Perry’s (in May, 2011) ‘foresight’ type of comparative research, which is designed for lesson learning and improved understanding and is vital for critical policy-based research. However, lessons from this research are not meant to be replicated or transferred like-for-like: they are meant to provide worked examples of attempted change processes, as well as ideas about relationships that enable or constrain change and transition in urban environments.

Case Selection

Each case represents an experimental assemblage around domestic retrofit in an urban context. If the aim of the research is to illuminate the varying effects of different urban contexts and conditions upon the organisation and orientation of a domestic retrofit initiative, then it should follow that cases should be selected for their contextual

differences. Comparing cases with similarities in other respects facilitates more confident pronouncements about the effect of context (Ragin, 1994). The relatively low number of cases was settled upon in order to juggle three goals: firstly, to enhance internal validity through depth, familiarity and closeness to the case data (Ward-Schofield, 1993), enabling the relationships and in and stories of each assemblage to be understood to a high level of detail; secondly, keeping the study within manageable limits for a lone researcher, and thirdly, enabling the development of useful ideas and concepts through comparative analysis.

The selection criteria also balanced theoretical and practical considerations (Henn et al, 2009). Whilst there is an element of convenience sampling in terms of a) what initiatives were available and operational at the time and b) their location and accessibility (feasible for travelling between three cities during the data collection process) there are also some

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deliberate similarities between the cases, reflecting the effort made to distinguish between exogenous, landscape factors, and endogenous, context-specific factors (Ward, 2010). A number of loosely defined, desirable characteristics between the cases were sought:

1. The initiatives must be in England, thus operating within the same national policy, cultural and political context, and within an accessible distance and travel time to Birmingham, where I am based.

2. The initiatives must be embedded in different urban contexts, to satisfy the original purpose and scope of the research.

3. The initiatives must concern the retrofit of privately owned or occupied domestic properties for the purposes of improving energy efficiency.

4. The initiatives should be community-based, to some extent. The insight into individual roles and values as well as their relationship to issues at various scales, understanding the impact of the landscape issues from macro, all the way to micro- scale and the importance of engaging with householders and their motives as highlighted in the literature review, could be more illuminated by focussing on community based initiatives rather than large scale social housing retrofits. 5. The cities should be of a similar population size to avoid reducing the causes of

difference to this factor.

It should be noted that there were also personal and external influences on city and case selection: Some of the criteria were derived from initial observations of the Birmingham case study (The Energy Saving Co-operative retrofit scheme) in which I was already involved as a volunteer at a partner organisation. This was the first case to be identified, and it was partly from initial impressions of this case, along with guidance from the themes emerging from the literature, that a tentative set of interesting features were identified, such as organisational forms, the use of networks of local organisations in different roles,

interactions with local authorities, etc, and from this point the comparative framework was built. The potential issues with this in terms of bias are acknowledged, and strategies to equalise the situation have been taken.

101 These include:

• The keeping of a reflexive journal of decisions made, reasons for doing so, and the

impact that my position may have had upon the research trajectory (Silverman, 2005, in Henn et al, 2009).

• Withdrawal from my voluntary role in connection to the Birmingham case study. • Allowing extra time (and effort) for building relationships and familiarity with

potential participants in Bristol and Manchester. Whilst my ‘insider’ status greatly facilitated initial access and familiarity with the first few participants in Birmingham, the relationships built from that point have been on the basis of my position as an interested researcher rather than as a volunteer, which is important in terms of a consistent professional relationship with participants.

It was also partly a stroke of luck that the Manchester Carbon Co-op initiative emerged in Manchester at the same time as the Energy Saving Co-operative, because in line with the body of work to be produced by the Retrofit 2050 project, which focuses on Greater Manchester and Cardiff, this PhD research needed to include at least one of those places. Had the Manchester Carbon Co-op and not existed, a different initiative in Manchester may have been selected and the research design may have taken a different path, perhaps looking at very different cases in different cities and having a strategy that was less contingent on the similarities listed above. Nonetheless, the research design settled on a comparison between community-based, domestic energy efficiency retrofit initiatives in different cities, and a focus upon the effects of the different city contexts upon the organisation and orientation of those initiatives.

Furthermore, the development of these criteria has happened alongside a number of problems with selecting a comparable case in Bristol, which was the third and final city added to the comparison.

At the time of initial case selection, there was no community-scale, specifically Green Deal- based retrofit initiative emerging in Bristol at the time of case selection. After a visit to Bristol and a period of familiarisation with the range of energy efficiency initiatives in action

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in Bristol, a more similar, domestic-based retrofit initiative was targeted. However, this first initiative was difficult to access for a number of reasons:

1) The staff at the lead organisation were very resistant to face-to-face visits and to taking part in interviews or discussions about the project and showed little interest in the research process. It was doubtful that a fair representation of perspectives of those involved would be gained, and after difficult initial contact, it might be hard to build the required level of rapport with participants.

2) The particular funding stream for this project ended soon after discovering the scheme and the project was in its final stages when I discovered it, making consistent access to those involved a little more difficult.

In terms of the Bristol case study, The Bristol Home Energy Upgrade scheme was city-wide and council-led, which was not originally envisaged to be the scale of initiative that the comparison would entail. It was also time limited and had ended by the time data collection started which creates some differences in terms of the kind of reflections and experiences that will be gained from interviews, but it encompasses a number of the same themes and foci that the other two case studies do, and its organisation is a reflection of the existing networks and arrangements in Bristol, which is interesting in itself as an element for comparison. The section criteria listed above were moulded along with the research, in order to create a comparison that would best tackle the research aims and objectives. Much like the experience Shurmer-Smith (1998) describes in her account of researching elites in the Indian Administration Service, the reflexive, autobiographical process of doing the research from my perspective shows a constant juggling of competing pressures: academic rigor, fleeting opportunities, personal values and practical issues, all whilst trying to define and redefine the actual focus of the project as it progresses, without losing its core identity altogether.