Alternate Approaches to Integrating Longitudinal Case Studies

In dealing with a large set of longitudinal case studies, researchers often assume that they can and should seek a single set of variables and explanatory theory to deal similarly with all the cases. This paper describes three approaches to the problems of cross-case integration and comparison. It also describes a set of comparative methods that can be used to diagnose case-study data-sets, to see which integrative approach is best.