Qualitative case study

The label of qualitative methods has no precise meaning, but, instead, it is an umbrella term that covers interpretive techniques that seek to describe, decode, translate, and come to terms with the meaning, not the frequency, of certain naturally occurring phenomena in the social world (Van Maanen 1979). Thus, qualitative research refers to research that produces findings by means other than quantification and statistical procedures (Strauss & Corbin 1990). While qualitative research has often been contrasted with quantitative research, which seeks to investigate the frequency of phenomena, qualitative research can also be applied from a more positivist or more constructivist philosophical starting point. Although qualitative positivism is dominant in international business research, this thesis is conducted from the critical realist perspective, as described above.

Qualitative research is useful in uncovering and understanding phenomena of which little is yet known and also in giving fresh, novel insights into phenomena that have already been under scholarly investigation. In particular, qualitative research is often naturally employed in research that attempts to enlighten people’s experiences with a given phenomenon. (Strauss & Corbin 1990) There are areas of social reality that statistics simply cannot measure (Silverman 2001), and qualitative research provides tools for such examination. As Miles and Huberman (1994, 1) put it, qualitative data ‘are a source of well-grounded, rich descriptions and explanation of processes in identifiable local contexts’. With qualitative data, one can preserve chronological flows of events and achieve fruitful explanations about

which events lead to which consequences, whereby researchers can also end up with unexpected findings and thereby come to generate or revise existing conceptual frameworks. Due to these aspects, qualitative research has become increasingly popular in disciplines such as business studies, organisational studies, psychology, and sociology. (Miles & Huberman 1994) As my focus is on a modestly investigated phenomenon which is strongly tied to people’s subjective experiences and also to their development through events over time in a specific context, this thesis builds on qualitative research.

The term qualitative research comprises various approaches and methods, including observation, the analysis of text and documents, and interviewing, which are often combined (Silverman 2001). The thesis utilises the case study approach, which is frequently used in industrial network research as it provides a ‘unique means for developing theory by utilizing in-depth insights of empirical phenomena and their contexts’ (Dubois & Gadde 2002, 555). Case research is an intensive research method that is, as Easton (2010) puts it, entirely compatible with critical realist ontology. He describes the critical realist case approach as ‘particularly well suited to relatively clearly bounded, but complex, phenomena such as organisations, interorganisational relationships or nets of connected organisations’ (Easton 2010, 123). Case studies are useful in exploratory theory-building about complex phenomena, for understanding the processual nature of the phenomena, and for contextualising the phenomena. In particular, case studies are helpful in seeing issues from the emic perspective, that is, from the perspective of the people involved, reflecting their understandings of the world. The views of what a case study is remain, however, conflicting due to differences in philosophical assumptions that often remain implicit in studies. The differences in views relate to theorising (causal variable-oriented explanations versus contextual case- oriented explanations), case selection (replication versus richness), the multiplicity of data sources (convergence versus diversity), and boundary-setting (predetermined design versus emergent logic). (Piekkari et al. 2009) Moreover, some scholars understand case study as a methodological choice, as a choice of what is studied (Stake 2005), and some as a choice of how to report a study (Wolcott 2002). There are also controversial views on the extent to which a case study aims at an empirical generalisation to other events (George & Bennett 2004) and to analytical generalisation to theory (Mitchell 1983).

Despite this heterogeneity of views, the main authorities of the case study in business and management studies, Yin (1984) and Eisenhardt (1989), remain cited in most international business case studies irrespective of the philosophical stance applied in the study. Eisenhardt (1989, 534) defines case study as ‘a research strategy which focuses in understanding the dynamics present with single settings’ and Yin (2009, 18) as ‘an empirical enquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and

within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident’. Yin builds on deductive, theory-based reasoning (Yin 1984; 2009), whereas Eisenhardt emphasises inductive theory-building (Eisenhardt 1989). However, they share a positivist view which, unlike the critical realist perspective employed in this study, does not aim at understanding personal meanings but at generalisation and prediction (Platt 1992). Nevertheless, following their work, case studies in international business tend to be implicitly positivist, interview-based, multiple case studies that are conducted at a single point in time. Single case studies and longitudinal case studies remain less applied alternatives even though critical realist and interpretivist studies have increased over the past 20 years. (Piekkari et al. 2009) Following the broad definition by Piekkari, Welch, and Paavilainen (2009) that accepts both positivistic and alternative conceptualisations, a case study is in this thesis viewed as ‘a research strategy that examines, through the use of a variety of data sources, a phenomenon in its naturalistic context, with the purpose of “confronting theory” with the empirical world’. This confrontation can either aim at theory-testing or at the holistic explanation of processes and causes in individual cases (Ragin 1992). On this basis, during a case study process, the relationship between theory and the empirical world is explored, destabilised, and reconstructed (Dubois & Gadde 2002).

There are also different ways of theorising based on case studies: inductive theory-building, natural experiment, interpretive sensemaking, and contextualised explanation (Welch et al. 2011). Inductive theory-building neither aims to study causal relationships nor emphasises the context of the study in order to produce generalisable results. Natural experiments are also de-contextualised but aim at causal explanation with a positivist orientation. Interpretive sensemaking, in turn, starts from a constructivist perspective and places strong emphasis on contextualisation and weak interest in explanation. The fourth alternative, contextualised explanation, is an emerging alternative building on critical realism. This approach rejects positivist notions of generalisability but builds contextually contingent relationships between causes and effects. Thus, the approach emphasises both contextualisation and causal explanation, appreciating context-specific idiosyncrasies and thereby creating powerful explanations (Tilly & Goodin 2006). Such good and rich stories about phenomena are also sometimes more powerful than plain constructs because they are understandable and memorable (Dyer & Wilkins 1991). This fourth approach to theorising is employed in this thesis as the aim is to understand why and how the studied phenomenon takes place in its context. In line with the critical realist perspective, causality here does not concern a fixed relationship between discrete events but the causal powers or mechanisms of objects, the activation of which depends on conditions in the context (Sayer 1992).