FIELD METHODSMeyer / CASE STUDY METHODOLOGY A Case in Case Study Methodology

The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive view of the case study pro-cess from the researcher’s perspective, emphasizing methodological consider-ations. As opposed to other qualitative or quantitative research strategies, such as grounded theory or surveys, there are virtually no specific requirements guiding case research. This is both the strength and the weakness of this approach. It is a strength because it allows tailoring the design and data collection procedures to the research questions. On the other hand, this approach has resulted in many poor case studies, leaving it open to criticism, especially from the quantitative field of research. This article argues that there is a particular need in case studies to be explicit about the methodological choices one makes. This implies discussing the wide range of decisions concerned with design requirements, data collection procedures, data analysis, and validity and reliability. The approach here is to illustrate these deci-sions through a particular case study of two mergers in the financial industry in Norway. In the past few years, a number of books have been published that give use-ful guidance in conducting qualitative studies (Gummesson 1988; Cassel