Multiple Case-Based Institutional Ethnography
Also known as: multi-site institutional ethnography, comparative institutional ethnography, multi-case IE, multiple-site IE
Multiple case-based institutional ethnography combines Dorothy E. Smith's institutional ethnography with a multi-site case structure, enabling researchers to trace how the same ruling relations, texts, and institutional processes operate across two or more distinct organizational or community settings. By holding the analytical framework constant while varying the site, this design reveals both the trans-local reach of ruling apparatus and the locally specific ways people navigate institutional coordination.
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When to use it
Use multiple case-based IE when the research question asks how institutional relations, policies, or ruling texts shape people's everyday experiences across more than one setting — for instance, comparing how the same welfare policy is enacted in urban versus rural offices, or how hospital accreditation standards coordinate nursing work in hospitals of different sizes. It is particularly valuable when you want to distinguish systemic institutional features from local adaptations. It is not appropriate when the goal is purely descriptive of a single setting, when quantitative generalization is needed, when resources do not allow sustained data collection at multiple sites, or when the phenomenon of interest is interpersonal rather than institutionally coordinated.
Strengths & limitations
- Reveals whether ruling relations and coordinating texts operate similarly or differently across diverse institutional contexts, producing analytically richer findings than a single-site study.
- Maintains the standpoint-centered rigor of institutional ethnography while extending its reach to multiple organizational settings.
- Effective for policy-relevant research: shows how national or organizational policies land differently in different local conditions.
- Allows replication logic — patterns confirmed across cases carry stronger evidential weight than single-site observations.
- Capable of surfacing invisible institutional mechanisms that no single site participant can fully see.
- Particularly useful for advocacy and reform because it documents both systemic problems and site-specific strategies that work.
- Substantially more resource-intensive than single-site IE: multiple sites require extended fieldwork, more participants, and longer analysis timelines.
- Cross-site comparability requires careful site selection; if sites differ on too many dimensions simultaneously, it is difficult to attribute observed variation to the ruling apparatus rather than to other contextual factors.
- The IE tradition's commitment to starting from people's standpoint can be difficult to maintain consistently when attention must be distributed across multiple sites.
- Findings remain context-specific and are not statistically generalizable; the value lies in theoretical and analytical transferability, not probability sampling.
Frequently asked
How is this different from standard comparative ethnography?
Standard comparative ethnography compares cultures, practices, or social arrangements across sites without a specific focus on how institutional texts and ruling relations coordinate local action. Multiple case-based IE holds a specific analytical lens — tracing ruling relations from people's standpoints — constant across sites. The comparison is organized around textual and institutional mechanisms, not cultural difference per se.
How many sites are typical?
There is no fixed number, but two to four sites is common in published IE multi-site studies. The limit is set by research resources and the depth of within-site analysis that IE requires. More than five sites risks producing superficial data at each site. The criterion is whether each site yields sufficient depth to map the ruling relations operating there.
Do I need to be physically present at each site for extended periods?
Traditional IE emphasizes sustained ethnographic presence, but multi-site designs sometimes use intensive interview-based fieldwork supplemented by document analysis rather than long-term residence at each site. The key requirement is enough access to trace how people's work is coordinated by texts — which demands more than a single visit but not necessarily months of continuous observation at every site.
Can this design be used deductively — testing whether a ruling relation identified in one site operates in others?
Yes, and this is one of the strengths of the multi-site design. A researcher who has mapped ruling relations in a primary site can purposively select additional sites to test whether those same textual mechanisms appear there. This analytic replication logic strengthens the claim that a discovered mechanism is genuinely systemic rather than site-specific.
Is this method compatible with participatory or community-based approaches?
Multiple case-based IE is compatible with participatory orientations — community members or front-line workers can be co-researchers who help identify the problematic, select sites, collect data, and validate findings. This alignment is natural because IE's starting point is always people's own experiences and concerns, not administrative or academic agendas.
Sources
- Smith, D. E. (2005). Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People. AltaMira Press. ISBN: 978-0759105690
- DeVault, M. L., & McCoy, L. (2006). Institutional ethnography: Using interviews to investigate ruling relations. In D. E. Smith (Ed.), Institutional Ethnography as Practice (pp. 15–44). Rowman & Littlefield. link ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 3). Multiple Case-Based Institutional Ethnography. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/qualitative/multiple-case-based-institutional-ethnography
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
- Comparative EthnographyQualitative↔ compare
- Critical Institutional EthnographyQualitative↔ compare
- Institutional EthnographyQualitative↔ compare
- Longitudinal Institutional EthnographyQualitative↔ compare
- Multiple-Case StudyQualitative↔ compare
- Participatory Institutional EthnographyQualitative↔ compare