Within the last twenty years qualitative research has become a mature field of study with its own literature base, research journals, special interest groups, and regularly scheduled conferences. What has remained constant amidst the burgeoning of resources for doing qualitative research is the value of a practical guide for designing and implementing this type of research. Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation represents my effort to explain qualitative research in an easy-to-follow narrative accessible to both novice and experienced researchers. In essence, it is a practical guide without being just a ´cookbook´ for conducting qualitative research, readers also come to understand the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of this research paradigm. Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation represents the latest iteration in my thinking and understanding of qualitative research. The first edition, published in 1988, centered on qualitative case study research, the 1998 second edition featured qualitative research, with case study as a secondary focus. For this third edition I have again reduced the attention to qualitative case studies. This is because people who have used both the first and second editions of this book have told me that they are using the book as a guide to qualitative research generally, and only secondarily as a book about conducting qualitative case studies. However, because case studies are a popular form of qualitative research and because what constitutes a qualitative case study is often confused with other approaches, I have devoted a chapter to qualitative case studies as one type of qualitative research. I have also addressed sample selection in a case stud) and writing up the findings in a case study as part of the chapters on these topics (Chapters Four and Ten).