For many years qualitative research in the business studies field remained a m inor tradition. It is only relatively recently that the whole debate about whether qualitative methods in general, and the case method in particular, are legitimate ‘scientific’ approaches to the generation of conceptual insights has begun to abate. It is little more than a decade ago that Van Maanen (1979) and his co-contributors to a special issue of the Adm inistrative Science Quarterly still felt the need to “reclaim” qualitative methods for the social sciences generally and that Yin (1981, p 58) sought anxiously to “reaffirm the role of the case study as a systematic research tool” and to “show that an acceptable craft had already emerged”. In the intervening period some of the most influential research in the business studies area in general, and in the strategy field in particular, has been primarily qualitative and case-based in approach. Porter’s (1980, 1985, 1990) work on competition, Burgleman’s (1983) study of internal corporate venturing, the research of Kanter (1983) and Pettigrew (1985a) on the management of strategic change, the Bradford studies (Hickson et al 1986) on strategic decision processes, and Hamel’s (1991) work on strategic alliances are among the more prominent examples.