CAUSAL CASE STUDY ANALYSIS AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

Case study analysis is a key approach to empirical research in the field of sociology and political science. This is for two main reasons. First, the research subject of many studies covers only a limited number of cases, such that a conventional quantitative design, which requires a large number of cases, is hardly applicable. Second, the research subject may address highly complex phenomena which require an in-depth analysis that again constrains the number of cases which can empirically be studied. Therefore the main problem of case study analyses is that one has to deal with a large number of variables relative to the small number of cases. This poses an obstacle to causal analysis, since the capacity for either controlling for intervening factors or considering interactive effects of two or more factors is limited. Under these circumstances, case study research often concentrates on "non-causal" (i.e. descriptive and typological) considerations. There are two methodological possibilities of a causal analysis of case studies that are designed to systematically control for factors: the Matched Paired Comparison (MPC) and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) together with its advanced version, Multi-Value-Qualitative Comparative Analysis (MV-QCA). MPC and QCA fundamentally differ in how they control for factors. MPC does so by carefully selecting the cases to be studied, such that the factors, which are not the focus of the study, are kept constant. QCA rests on a specific multivariate data analysis. Both causal approaches to case study analysis are rarely used in practice. In the case of MPC this is due to the enormous difficulties in finding appropriate cases. QCA is a relatively new approach whose main problem is the transformation of qualitative data into quantitative ones. This project systematically compares the explanatory power of MPC and MV-QCA with regard to one and the same subject and related case study material. This subject is the impact of collective bargaining on variable pay. To maximize the variance in collective bargaining, the design of this study is comparative in two respects in that it embraces two sectors (i.e. machine building and banking) and four countries (i.e. Austria, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom). Hence, the subject of this project is both methodological and substantive: Methodologically, it is a comparison of the two causal approaches to case study analysis. Substantively, the project makes a distinct contribution in analyzing how alternative (i.e. country- and sector-specific) systems of collective bargaining affect the decisions on variable pay in the companies.

Case study analysis is a key approach to empirical research in the field of sociology and political science. This is for two main reasons. First, the research subject of many studies covers only a limited number of cases, such that a conventional quantitative design, which requires a large number of cases, is hardly applicable. Second, the research subject may address highly complex phenomena which require an in-depth analysis that again constrains the number of cases which can empirically be studied. Therefore the main problem of case study analyses is that one has to deal with a large number of variables relative to the small number of cases. This poses an obstacle to causal analysis, since the capacity for either controlling for intervening factors or considering interactive effects of two or more factors is limited. Under these circumstances, case study research often concentrates on "non-causal" (i.e. descriptive and typological) considerations. There are two methodological possibilities of a causal analysis of case studies that are designed to systematically control for factors: the Matched Paired Comparison (MPC) and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) together with its advanced version, Multi-Value-Qualitative Comparative Analysis (MV-QCA). MPC and QCA fundamentally differ in how they control for factors. MPC does so by carefully selecting the cases to be studied, such that the factors, which are not the focus of the study, are kept constant. QCA rests on a specific multivariate data analysis. Both causal approaches to case study analysis are rarely used in practice. In the case of MPC this is due to the enormous difficulties in finding appropriate cases. QCA is a relatively new approach whose main problem is the transformation of qualitative data into quantitative ones. This project systematically compares the explanatory power of MPC and MV-QCA with regard to one and the same subject and related case study material. This subject is the impact of collective bargaining on variable pay. To maximize the variance in collective bargaining, the design of this study is comparative in two respects in that it embraces two sectors (i.e. machine building and banking) and four countries (i.e. Austria, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom). Hence, the subject of this project is both methodological and substantive: Methodologically, it is a comparison of the two causal approaches to case study analysis. Substantively, the project makes a distinct contribution in analyzing how alternative (i.e. country- and sector-specific) systems of collective bargaining affect the decisions on variable pay in the companies.