  This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study
research: (1) Theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge;
(2) One cannot generalize from a single case, therefore the single case study
cannot contribute to scientific development; (3) The case study is most useful
for generating hypotheses, while other methods are more suitable for hypotheses
testing and theory building; (4) The case study contains a bias toward
verification; and (5) It is often difficult to summarize specific case studies.
The article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and
concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large
number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic
production of exemplars, and that a discipline without exemplars is an
ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of more
good case studies.
