Case Research in Marketing: Opportunities, Problems, and a Process

The author discusses methods used in other social sciences and in marketing in terms of two key criteria defining “good research.” It is argued that the simultaneous research desiderata of data integrity and high currency or generalizability often place conflicting operational demands on researchers. Thus, tradeoffs must be made in employing any method to investigate a research problem. As a consequence of these inevitable tradeoffs, a broader rather than narrower method set becomes appropriate for marketing investigations. Case research is explored as one useful alternative research method for marketers. The nature of case research in contrast to case teaching or prescientific case culling is discussed, the appropriateness of case-based versus more conventional deductive methods is considered by researcher objective and type of problem investigated, and a four-stage case research process is described. General guidelines and caveats for the conduct of marketing case research are given. The author concludes that case research may be viewed as a metaphor for the general utility of the varied inductive research methods in expanding our perspectives on marketing research problems.