Epilogue

Summary

This book has understood case studies as a method for generalizing across populations (see Chapter Two). The population may be small or large, but the analysis is synecdochic. It infers a larger whole from a smaller part. (Occasionally, where there is a very small population, the researcher may be able to study every case in the population intensively. In this rare circumstance there is no inferential leap from sample to population.)

At times, however, the term “case study” may also refer to a piece of research whose inference is limited to the case under study. This sort of case study may be characterized (loosely) as “idiographic” rather than “nomothetic” insofar as the objective of analysis is narrowly scoped to one particular (relatively bounded) unit. Arguably, this is not a case study at all, since it is not a case of something broader than the case itself. Thus, I enlist a slightly different concept – the single-outcome study – as my topic in this epilogue.

Formally, a single-outcome study refers to a situation in which the researcher seeks to explain a single outcome for a single case. This outcome may register a change on Y – something happens. Or it may reflect stasis on Y – something might have happened but, in the event, does not. That is, the outcome may be “positive” or “negative.” The actual duration of the outcome may be short (eventful) or long.