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1. Introduction
Among research methods used in logistics and supply chain management (SCM) research, the case study has been frequently considered as one of the most powerful (Ellram, 1996; Voss et al., 2002; Seuring, 2008) because of its usefulness in assessing “real world” examples (McCutcheon and Meredith, 1993). Yin (2009, p. 18), defines it as “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and the context are not clearly evident, and copes with the technically distinctive situation in which there will be many more variables of interest than data points, and as one result relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulating fashion, and as another result benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis.” Since its early days, humanitarian logistics (HL) research has benefitted from the method, providing understanding to this “absolutely fascinating”, but complex subject (Van Wassenhove, 2003).
Studies of HL state of the art (Natarajarathinam et al., 2009; Kunz and Reiner, 2012; Leiras et al., 2014; Chiappetta Jabbour et al., 2017) have confirmed the need for more empirical evidence pointed out by previous authors (cf. Van Wassenhove, 2006). While literature reviews on the use of case studies in discipline-related fields identified an increasing trend toward using more qualitative case studies (Dubois and Araujo, 2007; Barratt et al., 2011), evidence shows that this trend is already a fact on HL and SCM literature, as qualitative methods are preferred over quantitative or mixed methods (Chiappetta Jabbour et al., 2017). However, HL literature is lacking a comprehensive study on how qualitative methods, particularly case studies, are used in this specific context. Addressing this issue, we conduct a theory-driven content analysis of published HL case studies in logistics and SCM journals, following Patton (2002). Results show ambiguous use of the term “case study,” insufficient information about the research process, and deficient use of theoretical frameworks, contributing to the critics and misconceptions so common for case study research (Ellram, 1996; Flyvbjerg, 2006). We call for more rigor when carrying out and documenting case research and, based on the results from the content analysis, propose a...