A major criticism of case-based research is that it
lacks rigor. While this is a serious criticism, it need
not be a valid one although the researcher should not
assume that this rigor will be appreciated. The main
focus of Yin (1989) is to aid in this effort by providing
guidelines for enhancing reliability and validity
in case-based research. He outlines ways in which
four logical tests for judging a research design may
be applied to case research. These four tests concern:
(1) construct validity, (2) internal validity, (3) external
validity, and (4) reliability. The methodology section
430 I. Stuart et al. / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 419–433
of the paper should be descriptive enough to convince
the reader that each of these four tests have been met.