Abstract
This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (1) Theoretical
knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (2) One cannot generalize from a single case,
therefore the single case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (3) The case study is most
useful for generating hypotheses, while other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and
theory building; (4) The case study contains a bias toward verification; and (5) It is often difficult to
summarize specific case studies. The 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 that a
discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the
execution of more good case studies.