Access to cases in public organisations

"getting acquiescence to interviewees is perhaps the easiest task in case study research" {Stake, 2005:65}

Such acquiescence is not easy for researching consultant-client relationships. Both parties are shy - skittish. Getting into central government is even more difficult because of the sensitivity and secrecy - hardly surprising given the criticism central government departments can face, like "x department spent so much on consultants or £m wasted on failed government IT. It's about politics here on the BBC. And selling papers here.

Such criticism may not be deserved - government servants face so much accountability and their top people do not want to be hauled up in front of a select committee to explain a public failure. Neither do their suppliers. Is it only the specialist IT media that report the less political good news here?

Maybe they suspect the motives of researchers looking for bad news, and don't believe they are looking to see how they do what they do together. On top of that, they are busy, just plain working with little spare time to explain what they do to outsiders - wouldn't they have to account for their time anyhow?

As a researcher I'm a guest. Despite the research area being a matter of public interest, I have no scholarly right to know {Stake, 2005}, but am a guest in their spaces. My manners must be good and I have no intention of exploiting or embarrassing anybody.

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STAKE, R. E. (2005) Qualitative case studies. IN DENZIN, N. K. & LINCOLN, Y. S. (Eds.) The sage handbook of qualitative research. London, Sage Publications.

Case selection

To investigate the phenomenon of engagement I need a collection of instrumental case studies. It would be nice to have a formal sample, because I might expect that such samples would represent some population of cases {Stake, 2005 #1371}. But the sample size I have is "too small to warrant random selection". So I have a purposive sample instead, a variety that represents different types of organisation, different IT projects and different types of third parties (consultants, suppliers, contractors). So I've chosen cases that seem to offer opportunities to learn and because these cases are accessible.

The other thing my cases seem to have in common is something successful about them - the participants are proud of their work.

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STAKE, R. E. (2005) Qualitative case studies. IN DENZIN, N. K. & LINCOLN, Y. S. (Eds.) The Sage handbook of qualitative research. London, Sage Publications.

Intrinsic and instrumental case studies

Intrinsic and instrumental interest in cases matters according to what you are researching

• Intrinsic - because you want to understand this particular case better
• Instrumental - I examine the case to provide insight into an issue. The issue I'm interested in is engagement in relationships therefore my cases are instrumental. Hence, I can study a number of cases jointly. so I have ..
• Multiple or collective case studies because I'm investigating the phenomenon of engagement and how it can add value or help to deliver value. "It's instrumental study extended to several cases" says Stake.

"It would be interesting to know the details of what IT system the organisation was implementing"

commented a supervisor on a paper I wrote on a case study. But in reply, I must point out that this is not an intrinsic case study, but an instrumental case, one of a collection of cases to investigate the phenomenon of engagement and as such, whilst it would indeed be interesting to know technical details, that information does not explain the phenomenon and so those details are not relevant. Furthermore, if including such details makes it easier to identify the participating organisation, it is better to leave them out.

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STAKE, R. E. (2005) Qualitative case studies. IN DENZIN, N. K. & LINCOLN, Y. S. (Eds.) The Sage handbook of qualitative research. London, Sage Publications.
in DENZIN, N. K. & LINCOLN, Y. S. (Eds.) (2005) The Sage handbook of qualitative research, Thousand Oaks ; London, Sage Publications.

Generalisation

On using case studies in my methodology chapter I'll have to comment on generalisation. Mason {2002} says it's not easy, that you have to know what your argument is and its relationship to the production of theory - and that's what I'm struggling with - relating real practical engagement to the engagement literature and social capital theory. I have to support each claim I make with the relevant linking material, Mason says.

The points to make must include:

• Qualitative research must produce explanations that have wide resonance and are generalisable even though case studies provide a compact unit of research {Payne, 2005 }
  
• Case studies should be interesting
• Case studies should maximise what can be learnt from that particular case
• Acknowledgement that limited generalisation is possible or appropriate to qualitative research

I need to find how Stake distinguishes between types of case study. From the web, I gather it's:

1. The intrinsic case study where ‘ this case is of interest… in all its particularity and ordinariness’ , ‘let the case reveal its story’
2. The instrumental case study in which a case is examined mainly to provide insight into an issue or for refinement of a theory.
3. The collective case study – number of cases studied in order to investigate some general phenomenon.

I want instrumental case studies to gain insight to the phenomenon of engagement. Collective case studies would be nice if I could get them. I'm not using intrinsic case studies, so don't need to go into details of what the project or programmes are - and that helps to keep confidentiality and anonymity.

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Mason, J. (2002). Qualitative researching. London, Sage.
Payne, G. and M. Williams (2005). "Generalization in Qualitative Research." Sociology 39(2): 295-314.
Stake, R. E. (1995) The Art of case study research, Sage. or in
Stake, R. (1994) Case studies, in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y.S. Handbook of Qualitative Research, London, Sage

Type of case study

Stake identifies different kinds of case study:

• intrinsic
• instrumental

I think there are others, but this information systems research site mentions just two.

Recommended by third party monitor, when I was talking about needing to provide more information than I wanted on a case study - that wasn't relevant and argument for not providing it because the kind of case study I needed for what I'm researching and what I'm interested in.

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STAKE, R. E. 1995 The Art of case study research, Sage.