Management Science

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

Back cover text: If the new fin de siècle marks a recurrence of the real, Bent Flyvbjerg’s Rationality and Power epitomizes that development and sets new standards for social and political inquiry. The Danish town of Aalborg is to Flyvbjerg what Florence was to Machiavelli: a laboratory for understanding the real workings of power, and for grasping what they mean to our more general concerns of social and political organization. Politics, administration, and planning are examined in ways that allow  a rare, in-depth understanding. The reader witnesses, firsthand, the classic and endless drama which defines what modernity and democracy are and can be.

There is widespread agreement among researchers that system usage, defined as the utilization of information technology (IT) by individuals, groups, or organizations, is the primary variable through which IT affects white collar performance. Despite the number of studies targeted at explaining system usage, there are crucial differences in the way the variable has been conceptualized and operationalized. This wide variation

... 27-51, 1970. 23. Jagannathan, R. and Ma, T., "Risk reduction in large portfolios: Why imposing the wrong constraints helps," J. Finance, v58, pp. 1651-1684, 2003. ... Lorenzo Garlappi: colleagues. Francisco J. Nogales: colleagues. Raman Uppal: colleagues. ...