Case Study Research: A Valuable Learning Tool for Performance Improvement Professionals

Abstract

Although it is sometimes recommended that performance improvement (PI) professionals include experimental research designs in their repertoire of PI tools and methods, it has been long understood that experimental designs can be difficult to implement due to impediments resulting from the complex nature of the organizational settings. However, the utilization of case study research has proven to be an effective alternative to aid in the identification of strengths and opportunities for the improvement of organizational procedures, policies, processes, or programs. Case study research helps managers and practitioners make sense of real world problems. This article presents a summary of steps in the design of case study research and provides examples of how these methods have been used within organizational settings.Implications for PI practitioners are provided. PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT PROFESSIONALS use a variety of processes, methods, and tools to help in the understanding of problems, to help design interventions that address these problems, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the selected interventions to ensure a proper return on expectations. Often these information-gathering methods and tools try to emulate those long-utilized by experimental researchers. However, due to the complex nature of organizational phenomena, true experimental designs often gain little traction as a viable option for performance improvement (PI) practitioners seeking tools that are useful and cost-effective to implement (Mulder, 1999 ). As the key purpose of any improvement effort is to learn from the past in order to predict or change the future, or to learn from best practices identified in one work unit in order to scale up or replicate in another work unit, it is important to invest in methods that will enable the practitioner to easily capture information from the particular in order to generalize to other relevant work groups. Case study research is an often neglected but useful research methodology that can be utilized to accomplish this. It is an effective tool for managers and practitioners to make better sense of workplace issues, thus further supporting problem solving and PI efforts, and one that all practitioners should have in their PI toolboxes.The purpose of this article is to briefly summarize the key steps involved in the design of case study research, and to present examples of case studies in which the results were used to inform the design of policies, practices, or other processes to improve performance in organizations. Although it is not the goal of this article to present exemplars in case study design, the reader may be able to identify commonalities between the issues and needs inherent in each of the cases and the reader's own organization, and to extract applications that will help in the translation of case study findings into learning opportunities.

Furthering Women Faculty in Leadership Roles: A Human Performance Improvement Case Study

“…To investigate a contemporary instance of leadership development phenomena in a single natural setting, single case study research was employed (Dooley, 2002; Marrelli, 2007; Turner & Danks, 2014). This method,s rich detail can: reveal the dynamics within a singular context; examine changes overtime within subjects; and, inform both research and practice (Brewerton & Millward, 2001; Eisenhardt, 1989; Hillard, 1993; Marrelli, 2007).…”

“…Other changes were assessed by a retrospective analysis of the participants via individual interviews (T2). Collecting both quantitative and qualitative data lends additional rigor as findings can be triangulated (Turner & Danks, 2014). Additionally, the use of mixed methods in case study research yielded a holistic lens by which to determine the intervention's value and the case's validity (Brewerton & Millward, 2001).…”

A Dialogical Approach to the Teaching of Writing: The Perceptions and Experiences of Doctoral Students

“…While some researchers have debated whether case study research remains a type of methodology or a strategy on what is to be investigated, Creswell (2007) viewed it as "a methodology, a type of design in qualitative research, or an object of study, as well as a product of the inquiry" (p. 73). Case study research is a methodology that can expose the dynamics of complex interactions within a setting, an event, or a problem and offers strategic advantages to researchers seeking to examine relatively unexplored complex real-world phenomena (Turner & Danks, 2014). Further, case study research is utilized when researchers are focused on exploring situations where "boundaries are not clear between the phenomenon and the context" and the problem exists "in a bounded, or specified, context and is, in effect, the unit of analysis" (Anderson, Leahy, DelValle, Sherman, & Tansey, 2014, p. 89).…”