Abstract

The proposed research design relies on the use of case study research. This method has been chosen because its use is appropriate when the researcher seeks to understand a real-life contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its context, and questions related to “how” are being asked (Yin, 2014). Furthermore, it facilitates a more comprehensive study of social networks and the actions, decisions and motives that they involve (Feagin et al., 1991). For this research, SFSCs represent the contemporary phenomena or case studies to be explored within its real-life context. Additionally, multiple cases will be selected as studies based on multiple-case design are regarded as more robust and offering more convincing evidence, which in turn serves to address potential issues related to reliability and analytic generalizability (Yin, 2014). Regarding theory building and generalization of findings, multiple-case design is also ideal and lends itself to falsification as proposed by Popper (Starman, 2013). Falsification requires the comparison of statements deduced from theory with empirical results. If the outcome of such comparison is negative, we may say that statements have been falsified and therefore the theory from where they were deduced. As long as the theory is capable of withstanding continued empirical tests (in this case, multiple case studies) and show positive outcomes, we may say that the theory is corroborated (Popper, 1935/2002).