A reflection on a case study with the case study research lens

A reflection on a case study with the case study research lens: a research note

Joseph Kim-keung Ho

Independent Trainer

Hong Kong, China

Abstract: Utilizing the basic ideas from case study research, the writer reflects on a case study carried out by him in 1986 to come up with an illustration on the basic nature and practices of case study research. The illustration is intended to offer some academic and pedagogical values to teachers and students involved in applied business research.

Key words: applied business research, case study, case study research, dissertation report writing, reflection

Introduction

Case study research method is an important one in the subject of Applied Business Research Methods. Teaching case study research method to students doing dissertation projects in Applied Business Research Methods, as the writer has been doing, requires comprehensible illustrative examples. Very often, academic journal articles and dissertation reports with employment of case study research tend to be quite sophisticated in its application, thus not easy for students to follow. In this research note, the writer reflects on his final year project with a case study in 1986 via the case study research lens so as to produce an illustration on how to employ case study research in dissertation projects in the Applied Business Research field. The next section provides some basic ideas on the case study research method. It is then followed by a brief description of the dissertation project on a case study conducted by the writer in 1986. The case study is then reflected on to produce an illustration on how the case study could be reconstituted as an applied business research project that employed the case study research method.

Basic ideas of the case study research method

The writer primarily draws on the case study research textbook of R.K. Yin (1989) to gather four basic ideas of the case study research method to facilitate the discussion in this research note. The basic ideas are as follows:

Basic idea 1: Definition: A case study is “an empirical inquiry that: investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context; when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used” (Yin, 1989: Chapter 1);

Basic idea 2: Five components of case study research design (Yin, 1989, Chapter 2): They are:

(i)               a study’s questions: the question is likely to be “how” and “why” types;

(ii)             its propositions, if any: the positions might point to an “important theoretical issue” and indicate “where to look for relevant evidence”;

(iii)           its unit(s) of analysis: the “case” could be an individual, an event or an entity;

(iv)           the logic linking the data to the propositions and, (v) the criteria for interpreting the findings: These components comprise the data analysis steps;

Basic idea 3: Criteria for judging research design quality (Yin, 1989: Chapter 2): These criteria include: construct validity, internal validity, external validity and reliability.

Basic idea 4: Case study research phases: Phase 1 - Preparing for data collection ((Yin, 1989: Chapter 3), Phase 2 - Collecting the evidence (Yin, 1989: Chapter 4), Phase 3 – Analyzing case study evidence (with dominant modes of analysis being (Yin, 1989: Chapter 5): pattern-matching, explanation-building, time-series analysis) and Phase 4 – Composing the case study “report” (Yin, 1989: Chapter 6).

The four basic ideas cover some key topics in case study research. Other than the textbook of Yin(1989), readers are also referred to the Literature on case study research Facebook page for further information on case study research. The next section moves on to describe a dissertation project on a case study by the writer in 1986.

An introduction to the dissertation project on Thornton Printing Company in 1986

The case study, which was reported in Ho and Jackson (1987), involved a 5-month project carried out by the writer for his M.A. (Management Systems) Degree at the University of Hull, UK, in 1986. The name of the company, Thornton Printing Company, was fake. The case study made use of a variety of systems ideas, among others, to explore the problem situation facing the company. Subsequently, it also evaluated the “Quality Management” programme adopted by the company, again using systems ideas. In 1986, the writer had not studied the subject of applied business research method, including case study research. Nevertheless, this case study in 1986 did match the description of a case study of Yin (1989), i.e. “an empirical inquiry that: investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context; when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used”.  The corresponding M.A. dissertation report of the writer shows the following dissertation report structure:

Acknowledgements

Summary

List of figures

Part One: Building up a ‘rich picture’ of a problem situation: Theory

1.     Building up a ‘rich picture’ of a problem situation: Theory

1.1            Introduction

1.2            Structure, process, and climate in Checkland’s methodology

1.3            The importance of understanding the environment

1.4            What can we learn from other writers’ theories?

1.5            Checkland’s terminology and Henry Mintzberg’s terminology:  a comparison

1.6            Checkland’s terminology and Igor Ansoff’s terminology: a comparison

1.7            A summary  of the relationships between structures, process and environment

1.8            Problematic situation and problems

1.9            Perceptions of the problem situation and cognitive mapping

1.10       From building up the rich picture of systems thinking

Part Two: Building a ‘rich picture’ of a problem situation: A case study – Thornton Printing Company

1.     Background and position in the Thornton Printing Company Group

1.1            A brief history of Thornton Printing Company and the Thornton Printing Company Group

1.2            Group structure

1.3            Locations of the different firms, offices & plants

1.4            Relationship between the members of the Thornton Printing Company Group

1.5            What are the  objectives of the Thornton Printing Company Group

2.     The external environment facing Thornton Printing Company

3.     Structure of Thornton Printing Company

3.1      Organisation charts of Thornton Printing Company

3.2      The Recent  Reorganization

3.3      Other important bodies

3.4      Descriptions of important roles and responsibilities

3.5      An interpretation of the ‘structure’ of Thornton Printing Company

4.         Process of Thornton Printing Company

4.1      Overall planning and control

4.2      Marketing

4.3      Sales

4.4      Production

4.5      Commercial Division

4.6      Research and Development

4.7      Personnel Policy

4.8      Quality control

5.         Perceptions of key personnel

6.         Summary of clients’ sense of unease

            6.1      Production problems

            6.2      Human relation problems

            6.3      Innovation problems

            6.4      Problems of management structure

            6.5      Problem of culture

            6.6      Financing for diversification

            6.7      Competition in the market place

7.         What is being done?

Part Three: Thornton Printing Company’s ‘Quality Management’ programme studied as an attempt to address their problem situation

1.     Introduction

2.     Quality Management and the ‘School of Excellence’

2.1      Propositions of Quality Management

2.2      Propositions of the ‘School of Excellence’

2.3      Is Quality Management compatible with the ‘School of Excellence?’

2.4      A summary of Quality Management and the ‘School of Excellence’ in a cognitive map

3.         An elaboration of the key concepts of ‘Quality Management’ as it is understood at Thornton Printing Company

4.         The mechanisms of the ‘Quality Management’ at Thornton Printing Company

4.1      Setting up an additional structure

4.2      Using ‘Quality Management’ sessions to teach ‘Quality Management’

4.3      Coaching by management

5.         Observation of the ‘Quality Management’ sessions

6.         Thornton Printing Company’s version of Quality Management and the versions in the original literature: A comparison using a ‘cognitive map’

7.         Assumptions behind Thornton Printing Company’s version of ‘Quality Management’

8.         A critical analysis of the assumptions

9.         Points for discussion

            9.1      Could the broader concepts of the ‘School of Excellence’ be incorporated into Thornton Printing Company’s ‘Quality Management’ programme?

            9.2      Could there be more critical discussions of the underlying assumptions of the ‘Quality Management’ programme?

            9.3      How can the ‘Quality Management’ programme become institutionalized into a continuous learning process?

            9.4      Should Thornton Printing Company investigate more closely how companies apply Quality Management?

            9.5      Should the attitude of management as implied in the ‘Quality Management’ programme be changed?

Part Four: Conclusion

1.     How far will Thornton Printing Company’s ‘Quality Management’ programme be able to alleviate the problems currently facing Thornton Printing Company?

2.     Would an enhanced ‘Quality Management’ help?

3.     What other systems work might help Thornton Printing Company to alleviate its problems?

Notes

References

Part Five: Lessons learned during the Project

List of additional figures

Additional references

As reflected from the dissertation report structure, the report covers (i) the problematic situation facing Thornton Printing Company as well as (ii) an evaluation of the ‘Quality Management’ programme of the company.  Ingredient research methods of the case study include interviews, observations and document study. The main unit of analysis is the ‘Quality Management’ programme just launched by the company. This programme was evaluated within its real-life context as depicted by the rich picture building exercise. With this information of the case study as revealed by the dissertation report structure of the writer’s MA thesis, the writer is now prepared to present an account of his reflection of the case study via the case study research method lens in the next section.

A reflection on the Thornton Printing Company case study via the case study research method lens

The Thornton Printing Company case study examined the context and the ‘Quality Management’ programme in substantial details with literature review on systems concepts, strategic management, organizational theory and quality management. The research process was also messy, not structured beforehand with a well formulated dissertation project plan. Nevertheless, when the case study was reported in the dissertation project report in written form, the case study content had been organized and more neatly structure. Had the case study research method learned by the writer in 1986, the overall project approach of the case study might have been different. Anyway, via the case study research method lens, the writer now offers the following revised dissertation report structure of the Thornton Printing Company case study as a project using the case study research method. The report structure is as follows in this case:

1.     Introduction

2.     Literature review

2.1      A critical and enriched review of the rich picture building exercise

2.2      A review of Quality Management and the School of Excellence

2.3      Systems ideas for organizational evaluation and Quality Management programme evaluation

3.         Research method

            3.1      Case study research: evaluation and justifications

            3.2      Phases of case study research involved

4.         Findings and analysis

            4.1      Findings from the main phases of case study research

            4.2      An evaluation of the environment facing Thornton Printing Company in the form of an enriched rich picture building exercise

            4.3      An overall evaluation of the ‘Quality Management’ programme of Thornton Printing Company

5. Conclusions and recommendations

6. Lessons learned from the dissertation project

References

Appendix    

The revised dissertation report structure reflects the application of the basic ideas of the case study research method in the case study.  The case study research methods lens enables the writer to reflect on the case study project experience, indicating how the case study report could have been done with improved research method design quality as well as quality of research findings. Overall, the discussion provides an illustration to students of applied business research methods on how a case study research can be carried out and subsequently formally reported.

Concluding remarks

By reflecting on the 1986 case study project of the writer via the case study research lens, the writer produced a research note that demonstrates the basic nature and practice of case study research for applied business research. The research note offers some academic and pedagogical values to teachers and students involved in applied business research methods study.

Bibliography

Ho, J.K.K. and M.C. Jackson. 1987. “Building a “rich picture” and assessing a “quality management” program at Thornton Printing Company” Cybernetics and Systems: An International Journal 18: 381-405.

Literature on case study research Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, J.K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.case.study.research/).

Yin, R.K. 1989. Case study research: design and methods, Sage publications, London.