The evidence of case study research in Business Management:

Definitions and guidelines for empirical analyses

Abstract

The case study is one of the preferred research methods in Business Management field due two main reasons, i) it is recommended for exploring new themes, subjects, relations, or contexts, and ii) it helps the researcher to build theory from analyzed case(s). Despite the extensive contributions from different authors in management research for addressing the case study method, the definition, constitution, and operationalization of evidence analyses are still not fully clear. This research has as goal to fulfil this gap in the research methods literature by defining, constituting, and guiding researchers in operationalizing the evidence analyses for case study research. In this research, the evidence concept was triangulated from Forensic Sciences in order to achieve a more specific and detailed definition. The notions of quality and types of evidence are revisited. Thus, evidence from empirical case studies is analyzed aiming to provide its constitution. The manuscript offers a guideline for researchers in the case study method for better identifying, gathering, analyzing, and presenting evidence found from empirical research.