Three dilemmas and their characteristics
| Balancing acts | Issue/challenge | Dilemmas between | Key references | Exemplars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crafting the case – casing | Arbitrariness | Settling too early in a premature lock-in situation Continuing too far – ending up on an endless data ride | Ragin (1992) Dubois and Gadde (2002) Halinen and Törnroos (2005) Easton (2010) Michailova et al. (2014) | Corsaro (2014) Lüscher and Lewis (2008) |
| Communicating the case | Richness | Including too long and detailed descriptions that risk obscuring theoretical contributions Too concise and structured cases risking over-simplification and lack of context | Dyer and Wilkins (1991) Easton (1995) Gummesson (2003) Starbuck (2003) Flyvbjerg (2006) Pratt (2008, 2009) | Kjellberg and Helgesson (2006) Peñaloza (2000) |
| Describing the process of the study | Messiness | Including too much detail of the process, as well as the abandoned routes Too streamlined ex post rationalization of how the study proceeded | Sutton (1997) Piekkari et al. (2010) Alvesson and Sandberg (2011) Dubois and Gadde (2014) | Mariani (2016) Wu et al. (2016) |
| Balancing acts | Issue/challenge | Dilemmas between | Key references | Exemplars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arbitrariness | Settling too early in a premature lock-in situation | |||
| Richness | Including too long and detailed descriptions that risk obscuring theoretical contributions | |||
| Messiness | Including too much detail of the process, as well as the abandoned routes |
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