‘Good’ case research in industrial marketing: Insights from research practice

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the emerging debate about the use of the case methodology in industrial marketing. We conducted a content analysis of the 145 case studies published in three key journals (Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing and Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing) over a 10-year period (1997–2006). The findings highlight the dominance of case research in qualitative industrial marketing research. They also lead us to distinguish between three different practices that influence perceptions of ‘good’ case research in this scholarly domain: ‘common’ practice, ‘best practice’ and ‘innovative’ practice. Our contribution lies in problematising what ‘good’ case research is, and showing how research practice – not just methodological literature – has a role in generating methodological conventions in a disciplinary field.