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Planning the Market Research

The most important parts of the marketing case study are:

  1. The case study's questions

  2. The study's propositions

  3. How information and data will be analyzed

  4. The logic behind what is being proposed

  5. How the findings will be interpreted
The study's questions should be either "how" or "why" questions, and their definitions are the researcher's first job. These questions will help determine the study's goals.

Not every case study has a proposition. If you are doing an exploratory study, you will not have propositions. Instead, you will have a stated purpose, which will determine whether your study is successful, or not.

How the information will be analyzed will depend on what the topic is. This would vary, depending on whether it was a person, group, or organization. Event and place studies are done differently.

When setting up your research, you will want to follow case study protocol. The protocol should have the following sections:
  1. An overview of the case study, including the objectives, topic, and issues

  2. Procedures for gathering information and conducting interviews

  3. Questions that will be asked during interviews and data collection

  4. A guide for the final case study report
When deciding upon which research methods to use, these are the most important:
  1. Documents and archival records

  2. Interviews

  3. Direct observations (and indirect when possible)

  4. Indirect observations, or observations of subjects

  5. Indirect observations, or observations of subjects
Documents could include almost anything: letters, memos, newspaper articles, Internet articles, other case studies, or any other document germane to the study.

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