Case Study vs Field Study

Case study is a qualitative research method where a or multiple cases with specific context are investigated. Case study foucses on studying organizations, events and activities with its specific context, aiming to link theory to practice. In this way, it provides practical evidence to test, support or refute existing theory, as well as to develop a new theory. Therefore, case study is particularly useful in answering "how" and "why' questions, as well as identifying problems and best practices in the particular context. Schon (1983, p.50) argues that case study is vauable to the "entire process of reflection-in-action, which is central to the 'art' by whcih practitioners sometimes deal well with situations of uncertainty, instability, uniqueness and value conflict". 

Case study may take researchers either a short or long time to complete, depending on the research question. Data collection for conducting a case study may be in the form of interviews, archival documents and experiments.

Field research is about studying phenomena in their nature setting (Atkinson and Shaffir, 1998). Researchers who advocate field research contend that natural behaviour can not be captured from the outside. Field research is particularly useful when researchers want to study the natural habit of their target observations, standing from the point of view of those who are observed.

In order to collect data in field research, researchers have to pick up a particular site and stay in that site for a long period. Further, researhcers have to get used to the "local cultural" of the research site and get recognized by "local people" in the research site. Shaffir and Stebbins (1991) describes field research as a continuous process including getting in, learning the reopes, maintaining relatinoships, and leaving.

Nevertheless, whenever doing case study or field research, it is always important to pick up case(s) or research site that a) is helpful in answering research problems/questions and b) is closely related to the theoretical framework in the research paper.