An interesting question and one for which I was not sure how to answer. These papers, though, might be of interest; particularly the first:

Mookherji, S., & LaFond, A. (2013). Strategies to maximize generalization from multiple case studies: lessons from the Africa Routine Immunization System Essentials (ARISE) project. Evaluation, 19(3), 284-303.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258136949

Crowe, S., Cresswell, K., Robertson, A., Huby, G., Avery, A., & Sheikh, A. (2011). The case study approach. BMC medical research methodology, 11(1), 100.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Aziz_Sheikh/publication/51252479

I looked at one of the references from the above paper:

George, A. L., Bennett, A., Lynn-Jones, S. M., & Miller, S. E. (2005). Case studies and theory development in the social sciences.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/94e9/eec015c650880356853533c4dc9b2dac42bb.pdf

Very best wishes,

Mary

I appreciate the sincerity of the answer and thank you for your suggestions.

Hi Adriana,

Just saw your question. I do believe you can create such a generalization. In qualitative research this is referred to as case-to-case transfer and it occurs whenever a person in one setting considers adopting a program, finding, or idea from another setting. This form of generalization has a long history of utilization and this practice of transferring learning and findings from one case to another has occurred both within research settings and in areas like law and medicine. Case-to-case transfer is different from the other two types of generalization in that the decision to transfer or generalize is made by the reader of the research and not the researcher. For this to occur, however, the researcher has an obligation to provide a “thick description” of the case (Firestone, 1993).

A goal of research is to discover entities that tend to produce effects. Particularly, when employing this form of research generalization, it is important for the qualitative researcher to know the essential operational conditions in the first instance (case one) and to determine whether they also operate in the second instance (case two). Kennedy (1979) suggests four criteria needed to make such a determination by asking a series of questions that to help account for the complexity. First, are the material facts of the first case similar to those of the case to which the transfer should occur? Second, is the application from one case to the other appropriate to the new setting in terms of fairness and/or rightness of the goals for the program? Third, are the reasons for the application to the new instance justified and defensible? Finally, what is the final generality of the decision? Of course, the identification of more general processes or findings through the use of these questions encourages broader application or generalization of the findings.

Here are the two references and one of my articles where I have taken this from:

Firestone, W. A. (1993). Alternative Arguments for Generalizing from Data as Applied to Qualitative Research. Educational Researcher, 22(4), 16-23.

Kennedy, M. M. (1979). Generalizing from single case studies. Evaluation Quarterly, 3, 661-678.

Thank you for the valuable answer.

Sincerely, Adriana