Three Types of Case Studies and Their Usefulness

Running head: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Three types of case studies (Exploratory, Descriptive, Explanatory) and the usefulness of each
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1PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Topic: Three types of case studies (Exploratory, Descriptive, Explanatory) and the
usefulness of each
Exploratory case study
Case studies are useful research methods that are used to analyze the specific research
issues or problems with the boundaries of a particular environment, organization or situation
(Yin, 2011). There are two types of research methods, qualitative and quantitative. Exploratory
case study is most commonly used under qualitative research methods. As the name suggests,
this type of case studies are chosen for exploring the research phenomenon in a new angle or to
get a new aspect. Exploratory case studies have the purpose of finding out the answers of the
questions, such as, ‘who’ and ‘what’ (Baskarada, 2014). Qualitative methods are usually
followed for exploratory case studies and hence, the data collection methods include interviews,
experiments etc., which can be explored for the findings. The interpretations of the findings are
based on the interpretation skills and judgment of the researchers.
This type of case study is mostly beneficial to investigate distinct research phenomena,
which is characterized by lack of in-depth preliminary or groundwork research (Verner &
Abdullah, 2012). According to Newcomer, Hatry & Wholey (2015), when the formulated
research hypotheses cannot be tested due to limitations of groundwork or any specific situation,
then exploratory case studies are useful to adopt. On the other hand, as stated by Yin (2011),
these case studies are useful for gathering preliminary and qualitative information for defining
the research problems and formulate the relevant hypotheses that can be tested further.
Moreover, this type of study does not need propositions unlike the descriptive and explanatory