What Makes a Good Case Study? A Positivist Review of Qualitative Case Research Published in Industrial Marketing Management, 1971–2006

Abstract

Business-to-business (B2B) marketing has a long tradition of using qualitative case studies.Industrial Marketing Management, for example, has actively encouraged the use of qualitative case study methods, resulting in many important theoretical advances in B2B marketing.However, debate still rages over the nature of "research quality" in qualitative case studies.Based on an analysis of 105 case-based articles appearing in the period 1971-2006 in Industrial Marketing Management, we analyze how authors address research quality.As a result of our analysis, we recommend that qualitative case researchers need to address explicitly epistemological stance and issues of research quality; methods, including sampling decisions, data collection tools, and analysis; and, finally, triangulation of data, methods, and researchers.

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