Processes of a case study methodology for postgraduate research in marketingWord格式.docx

1、Abstract Qualitative research has not been viewed as a rigorous alternative to established quantitative methods in postgraduate marketing research. However, this paper reports on the Australian development of a successful, structured approach to using the case study methodology in postgraduate resea

2、rch. Its aim is to present and justify guidelines for using the case study research methodology in honours, masters and PhD research theses, and so it should interest candidates and their supervisors. First, appropriate positions on a range of scientific paradigms and core issues of induction and de

3、duction are established. Then implementation of the case study methodology is examined, including the numbers of case studies and of interviews. Unusual but effective uses of theoretical replication to rigorously analyze case study data are illustrated from postgraduate theses. Finally, a framework

4、is provided for constructing a thesis, emphasizing the key methodology chapter.Article Type: Technical paperKeyword（s）:Australia; Case studies; Marketing research; Marketing theory; Methodology. Journal:European Journal of MarketingVolume:32Number:9/10Year:1998pp:785-802Copyright MCB UP LtdISSN:0309

5、-0566IntroductionCase studies are familiar to marketing educators and their students as a teaching device. For example, the Harvard Business Schools cases are widely used to allow students to be emotionally involved and learn action-related analysis of real, complex situations （Christensen and Hanse

6、n, 1987）. However, although case studies can also be used as a research methodology （Easton, 1994a; Parkhe, 1993; Tsoukas, 1989; Yin, 1993, 1994）, no journal of research case studies or case study methods exists and the most common social science and evaluation research methods textbooks “hardly men

7、tion case studies” （Yin, 1993, p. xi）. Indeed, one survey of PhD dissertations in six fields concluded that case studies were inappropriate in postgraduate research, that is, one way to rectify the “mindless empiricism” of many doctoral dissertations would be to “simply eliminate case study disserta

8、tions” （Adams and White, 1994, p. 573）.This paper reports the Australian development of a successful, structured approach to using the case study methodology in postgraduate research. The paper is designed for postgraduate research students in marketing and their supervisors, for its aim is to prese

9、nt and justify guidelines for using the case study research methodology in honours, masters and PhD research theses. That is, only case studies used in postgraduate theses are considered, and not those used for other purposes such as consulting （Yin, 1994）, program evaluation （Patton, 1990） or marke

10、t research.The papers contribution to marketing education derives from its focus on structured, postgraduate research processes and from its detailed treatment of prior theory and induction in case study research. Marketing education will benefit from its rigorous procedures for postgraduate student

11、s to research complex, contemporary topics relevant to their current or future careers, about which little academic research has been published. Recent examples of these topics are marketing on the Internet, business reengineering and customer service, home banking, marketing of community museums, a

12、nd organizational accountability of the marketing communications function. In the marketing department of one Australian university in 1995, all five honours and three of the five masters by research students opted to use this methodology; all completed their thesis within normal time, indeed, the m

13、asters theses were finished three to five months before minimum time. Half the examiners passed the theses without revision and the other examiners revisions required less than one day to complete. Refereed and unrefereed conference papers based on many case study theses have been presented at inter

14、national conferences, and most of the students subsequently gained the jobs they had worked towards.The paper has a structure that ranges from strategic to tactical issues, because both must be mastered for case studies to be understood and applied in postgraduate theses. First, the appropriate scie

15、ntific paradigm and levels of induction and deduction are established. Implementation of the case study methodology is then examined, including the number of case studies and interviews. Use of theoretical replication to rigorously analyze case study data is illustrated from a postgraduate thesis. F

16、inally, a framework is provided for constructing a thesis, emphasizing the key methodology chapter.Because of the specific focus of this paper, case study research methodology is defined as “a research methodology based on interviews that is used in a postgraduate thesis involving a body of knowledg

17、e”. The methodology usually investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident （Yin, 1994, p. 13）.Scientific paradigmsThere are two major approaches to theory development, deductive theory testing and inducti

18、ve theory building （Bonoma, 1985; Romano, 1989）. The difference between the two approaches can be viewed in terms of scientific paradigms, with the deductive approach representing the positivist paradigm and the inductive approach representing the phenomological paradigm （Easterby-Smith et al., 1991

19、, p. 24）. More precisely, the phenomological paradigm can be divided into three: critical theory, constructivism and realism （Guba and Lincoln, 1994）. Table I is a conceptual schema of these four paradigms, using three columns which allow the evaluation of each paradigm for case study research （base

20、d on Guba and Lincoln, 1994; Hunt 1991; Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991; Tsoukas, 1989）. The columns in Table I refer to the dimensions of deduction/induction, objective/subjective and commensurable/incommensurable. Each of those dimensions is discussed next.Realism is the preferred paradigm for case s

21、tudy research for several reasons. First, case study research areas are usually contemporary and pre-paradigmatic, such as inter-organizational relationships and relationship marketing （Boing, 1994）. That is, the research areas usually require inductive theory building for deduction from already exi

22、sting principles of a “paradigm” is likely to be difficult where accepted principles and constructs have not been established or are clearly inadequate. Second, realism does not suffer from the limitations of relativism （Hunt, 1991） that constructivism and critical theory do, for realism is often ch

23、aracterized by some researcher objectivity. That is, it holds that there is an external reality （Tsoukas, 1989）, although the complexity of that reality and the limitations of a researchers mental capacity makes triangulation of data essential to refine fallible observations of that reality. The con

24、tinuing efforts of many marketing researchers almost necessitates the belief that there is an external world which can be researched （Hunt, 1991; Leplin, 1986）. In other words, case study research efforts usually involve the collection of perceptions of “unobservable” external world phenomena such a

25、s perceptions that are “unobservable” （Hunt, 1991, p. 282）, for example, views about non-economic and non-technological motivations in relationship marketing. As has been noted in the marketing literature （Hunt, 1991）, positivism requires that only observable phenomena can and should be researched,

26、so realism rather than positivism is a more appropriate epistemological guide for case study research.Coming to the third dimension in Table I, case study researchers expect that their knowledge claims can and will be evaluated through some common measures, like reliability and validity issues, care

27、ful evaluation of research topic and methodology, and through review by examiners. This commensurabilty is not so evident in constructivism and critical theory research. In brief, realism is the appropriate scientific paradigm for case study research. How this position justifies some procedures is n

28、oted next and later, as the procedures are discussed.Given this appropriateness of realism for case study research, the research problems addressed in theses are more descriptive than prescriptive, for example, no positivist experiments or cause-and-effect paths are required to solve the research pr

29、oblem. That is, the research problem is usually a “how do?” problem rather than a “how should?” problem. This “how do” rather than “how should” problem captures the positive versus normative dichotomy, for case study research is concerned with describing real world phenomena rather than developing n

30、ormative decision models. Because inductive, theory building rather than theory testing is the goal of the thesis, its final chapter must always present a proposed theory to solve the “how do” research problem based on a model of boxes and connecting lines. Moreover, the final “further research” section of the thesis will acknowledge that this theory will have to be tested for statistical generalizability in later,