Case Studies as Natural Experiments

In: Human relations: towards the integration of the social sciences, Band 42, Heft 2, S. 117-137

Abstract

The paper poses organizational case studies as a provocative way of addressing a long-standing controversy within the social sciences between the subjectivist and objectivist schools of thought. Whereas organizational case studies are customarily conducted as a form of subjectivist research, they may, in addition, be conducted so as to fit the conceptions of objectivist research as well. The paper explains how to achieve this result by conducting case studies as a form of natural experiment. The paper uses organizational case studies in this way to reveal the intersection which exists between the subjectivist and objectivist schools of thought. Organizational case studies which fall in the intersection constitute, in themselves, refutations to the alleged incompatibility between the two schools of thought, and exemplify how a rapprochement can be forged between them. The paper uses an actual organizational case study, Kanter's Men and Women of the Corporation, to illustrate these points.