I have attached a link to a paper  - half way through, it discusses qualitative content analysis for case-studies. The second paper by Eisenhardt, discussing how to build theories from case-studies, is also attached. See below:

http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/75/153January%202006

Case studies are a general approach to doing research, and as such they do not have any particular "philosophical under pinning." Instead, your overall research purposes and goals should define your philosophical outlook.

As a general resource (including analysis strategies), I recommend Yin's book, Case Study Research: Design and Methods.

The following papers should also be helpful: 

• Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 12, 2, pp. 219-245.
• Gerring, J. (2004). What is a case study and what is it good for? American political science review, 98, 2, pp. 341-354.
• Noor, K. B. M. (2008). Case study: A strategic research methodology. American journal of applied sciences, 5, 11, pp. 1602-1604.
• Yin, R. K. (1981). The case study crisis: Some answers. Administrative science quarterly, 26, 1, pp. 58-65. 

As a follow up, does anyone have any advice/papers on writing up process studies for publication - that is, balancing word count with detail, which is of course, the point of the study?

Thanks

Dear Caroline

I recommend the following reading

Denscombe, M., 2014. The good research guide: for small-scale social research projects, 5. ed. ed. Open University Press, Maidenhead.

Patton, M.Q., 2015. Qualitative research & evaluation methods: integrating theory and practice, Fourth edition. ed. SAGE Publications, Inc, Thousand Oaks, California.

Robson, C., 2002. Real world research: a resource for social scientists and practitioner-researchers, 2nd ed. ed. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK ; Madden, Mass.

Yin, R.K., 2003. Case study research: design and methods, 3rd ed, Applied social research methods series. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Zainal, Z., 2007. Case study as a research method. Jurnal Kemanusiaan 9, 1–6

Kind Regards

Roland

Michelle B. Cowley ·Since case study IS a method of qualitative research, as is content analysis, are you referring to "case study" as existing documentation, for e.g. a psychological case studies of individuals?

In my opinion, case studies illustrate specific research topics and are not available elsewhere. That specificity leads to case study research. There may be similarities but in a very different way. The question is, maybe there is such a thing ?. I think if based on culture, then the chances of difference are very real. Given the culture of each community is different, there may be similarities but the whole is definitely different. The approach method used must be qualitative, with multiple methods to get the data including the analysis, so that validity and reliability are answered as part of the triangulation process. My suggestion is Creswell's book, J.W. (2013) Qualitative Inquiry and Reasearch Design: Choosing Among Five Approach, Thousand Oaks, Sage. Thanks.