Enfolding Literature
An essential feature of theory building is comparison of the emergent concepts, theory, or hypotheses with the extant literature. This involve asking what is this similar to, what does it contradict, and why. A key to this process is to consider a broad range of literature. Examining literature which conflicts with the emergent theory is important for two reasons. First, if researchers ignore conflicting findings, then confidence in the findings is reduced. For example, readers may assume that the results are incorrect (a challenge to internal validity), or if correct, are idiosyncratic to the specific cases of the study (a challenge to generalizability). Second and perhaps more importantly, conflicting literature represents an opportunity. The juxtaposition of conflicting results forces researchers into a more creative, framebreaking mode of thinking than they might otherwise be able to achieve. The result can be deeper insight into both the emergent theory and the conflicting literature, as well as sharpening of the limits to generalizability of the focal research. Literature discussing similar findings is important as well because it ties together underlying similarities in phenomena normally not associated with each other. The result is often a theory with stronger internal validity, wider generalizability, and higher conceptual level. Overall, tying the emergent theory to existing literature enhances the internal validity, generalizability, and theoretical level of theory building from case study research. While linking results to the literature is important in most research, it is particularly crucial in theory building research because the findings often rest on a very limited number of cases. In this situation, any further corroboration of internal validity or generalizability is an important improvement.