Prospective Case Study Design for Deductive Theory Testing.

The paper advances a prospective case study research design in social sciences as an alternative to traditional post-hoc case study research in deductive theory testing. It is argued that some limitations of post-hoc qualitative methods in deductive theory testing can be alleviated by using a prospective case study design, where the researcher formulates a set of theory-based hypotheses in respect to the evolution of an on-going social process and then tests these hypotheses at a pre-determined follow-up time in the future by comparing these hypotheses with the observed process outcomes using