Case Study
Yin (1984) defined the case study method as “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real- life context” (p. 23). The characteristics of this method have a number of implications for conflict studies.
First, a case study focuses on a “bounded system” (Stake, 2008), defined by the choice of the unit of study and its boundaries. Thus, central to conducting a case study of conflict is to decide what to study. Second, a case study is characterized by its intensity. Compared with cross-unit analysis, a case study of conflict can offer more details, completeness, and variance in a single unit of analysis. Third, case studies are developmental, well suited for the evolving nature of most conflicts. Fourth, case studies pay great attention to context and produce concrete, context-dependent knowledge. Finally, given its “boundedness,” case studies draw boundaries between the case and context (Flyvbjerg, 2011).Central to the method is the selection of cases to answer the research question and the use of varied information sources to develop a holistic picture of the conflict. Single or multiple cases may be chosen by conflict researchers who consider both the uniqueness and representativeness of these cases that ultimately have to satisfy the purpose of the study and address the research question posed. However, the selection of different conflict cases may increase the complexity of data collection and analysis, as does a single case that employs different levels of analysis. Furthermore, Yin (1984) stipulates that this methodology relies on multiple sources of evidence to gain breadth, depth, and richness of a given case. Through triangulation of multiple data sources, it is possible to achieve understanding of conflict phenomena. Varied information sources can be used, including documentation, interviews, and archives.
Consequently, case studies can combine a number of methods of data collection and analysis, including qualitative and quantitative, analytical and hermeneutic, or mixed methods. The case study method has been used often in interpersonal, organizational, PR, community, and international conflict situations.Although case studies have not been commonly used in interpersonal conflict research, some scholars have adopted this methodology because “[sometimes] one artifact can reveal a great deal about the whole culture” (Ney, Blank, & Blank, 2007, p. 312) in interpersonal dynamics. In their study of a child custody case involving a separated couple, the authors analyzed the style, structure, and content of argument in the affidavits. Adopting “meta- critical Foucauldian theories of knowledge, power, and discourse,” the study understands affidavits as “a technology in high-conflict custody and access divorce cases, [that] can contribute to or construct conflict they intend to resolve” (p. 305). Affidavits, legal documents sent to court under oath, are shown to be constructed with “the rhetoric of ownership and nonpersonal form of address” that depersonalizes involved parties and transforms them into a “nonparent” and “litigant” (p. 320). Moreover, the language used in affidavits enables and sustains conflict instead of resolving it: “With each response, there is an increased incidence and intensity of labeling, blaming and defending” (p. 320).
To explore organizational conflict, case studies have been utilized to research conflict in for-profit, not-for-profit, third sector, and institutional settings. For instance, case studies describe the clash of discourse during interprofessional collaborative writing among attorneys, nurse consultants, and writers in a law firm (Palmeri, 2009). Palmeri, who was once an employee writer at the firm, recruited and interviewed seven individuals in interprofessional collaboration: Three writers, two attorneys, and two nurse consultants answered 11 open-ended questions.
Through data analysis from a grounded theory approach, this study reveals the varied layers of conflicts at a medical-oriented law firm where discursive conflicts and epistemological conflicts are intertwined with differences in professional affiliations and complex power relations. For instance, nurse consultants, who were in an inferior power position institutionally compared with lawyers, struggled to assert power although they managed to do so by claiming their nursing expertise. He shows, however, that while these conflicts can decrease efficiency, they can also productively ensure the diversity of input from different professional group members (legal, medical, and corporate) who act as discourse mediators to produce dialogic, persuasive narratives. In one incident, praising the objective review of a medical record by a nurse consultant, an attorney remarked that “we really were able to... point out that the nursing home was not doing what it was supposed to do... based on the information that was in [your report]” (p. 54).The case study method has often been used in public relations to investigate conflicts between organizations and their publics. A study by Reber, Cropp, and Cameron (2003) analyzed the case of a hostile business takeover. The case was constructed through extensive review of news, company PR materials, court records, legal analyses, and in-depth interviews with members of the company’s PR and legal staff and outside PR counsel. Taking into account such contingent factors as moral conviction, multiple publics, regulatory constraints, management pressure, jurisdictional issues, and legal constraints, the study argues that conflict management should be a key component in PR scholarship. Conceived of as such, the realm of PR could be “an antecedent condition to alternative dispute resolution, as well as a factor in dispute solutions” (p. 21).
A rising body of PR scholarship drawing from activism research has enabled scholars to examine how activist strategies can be deployed by groups lacking political and economic power to “create conflict with, and encourage resistance to, dominant social discourses and institutions” (Weaver, 2010, p.
40). A case study of the New Zealand group Mothers Against Genetic Engineering by Weaver (2010) illustrates how carnivalesque protests by the “lower stratum,” communicated symbolically through pleasurable emotions, particularly humor, challenged the rational “higher stratum” composed of government, corporate, and regulatory bodies. In this case, not only did female protesters wear cow masks outside the Auckland’s High Court, they also staged provocative billboards depicting a naked fourbreasted woman on her hands and knees with a milking machine attached to her breasts. Drawing on newsletters, press releases, campaign websites, and news reports, the author showed how the women-centered campaign intentionally provoked conflict and presented the activism as stylish, sexy, and fashionable.The case study method has been more popularly used in community conflict research. In an early study of community conflict via competing information campaigns conducted by environmental and timber industry groups in the Pacific Northwest, Lange (1993) explored the cocreation of conflict within a system of necessity and constraints. The campaigns are shown to progress in a synchronous, spiral-like pattern of interaction as opposing
parties match their rhetorical and communication strategies. Research data are gathered through qualitative fieldwork comprising participant observation, extensive interviewing, and examination of written materials such as newsletters, press releases, and miscellaneous publications on both sides.
Recently, the case study approach toward community conflict research has migrated to the realm of online communities. For instance, Aakhus and Rumsey (2010) investigated the making and maintenance of supportive communication by analyzing an episode of conflict in an online cancer support community. Drawing on approaches of communication design, grounded practical theory, and pragmatic theories of argumentation, the authors analyzed a 5-day conflict episode based on archived online exchanges composed of 96 of the 217 contributions that directly involved 30 of the 42 participants in the online support group.
Three distinct clusters were identified by a natural history approach to transcription that mapped senders and receivers of messages. Conflict, the researchers showed, developed over “the right to criticize,” “the role of venting,” and “the value of disagreement in communicating support” (p. 65). As an example of how members struggled over the right to vent, Sue addressed Karen: “Karen, You OBVIOUSLY have no idea what having a child with cancer mean. IT MEANS EVERYONE IN THE FAMILY SUFFERS WITH CANCER!!!!!!!” (p. 74). Hostile exchanges as such revealed the difficulty the community had about what constitutes “supportive communication.” Unlike prior online conflict research focusing on how media features lead to flaming, the authors argued that interaction norms “were both a source of conflict, and a resource for its management” (p. 80).Situated often in specific historical and cultural contexts, the case study approach can also contribute to a deeper understanding of conflict and conflict resolution in international environments. In a recent study of the diplomatic activities led by the Carter Center (TCC) from 2000 to 2004 to end decades of protracted military conflict between Sudan and Uganda, Papa, Mapendere, and Dillon (2010) focused on the communicative approach of “planned improvisations” in peacemaking and organizational actions. Much like jazz improvisation that involves the spontaneous and creative expressions within the context of formal jazz theories, planned improvisation, the authors argue, “is always based on some minimal communicative structure” (p. 359). Drawing on TCC documents, U.S. archival records as well as 26 interviews with top-level leaders from the TCC, international NGOs, Sudanese and Ugandan government officials, and former military rebels, the study conducted thematic data analysis by a team of six trained coders. It was revealed that at times in the peacemaking process, negotiators themselves, like Dr. Ben Hoffman, Director of the Conflict Resolution Program at TCC, felt that
there was no strategic compass anymore, that we are flying blind at times, that the parties were just fading into the fog and you didn’t know where you were going because who could you trust? Was there double-speak? And who was really committed to peace, if anybody? Kony, Yahia, Museveni—who gave a damn about peace really? (p. 361)
Despite such moments, rivals and rebels were brought to the negotiation table by mediators such as Hoffman whose improvisational freedom could not have been orchestrated without prior rich experience of mediation, strong relationship building, and simple yet sophisticated rules for communication.