Qualitative research has been flourishing in management research over the past decades and with it, the challenge of purposeful case selection and saturation. Considering the level of analysis is particularly challenging as cases are not typically individuals, but aggregated individuals or collective entities, such as units, organizations, or types of organizations. Our study reaches out to other disciplines for additional guidance of purposeful case selection and saturation. In addition, we review studies on how they considered purposeful selection and saturation given the different levels of analysis in management studies. Our study zooms in on three typical qualitative approaches in business and management research: the so-called Gioia, the Eisenhardt, and the flexible pattern matching approach. We contribute a review of previous studies and upon this deliver suggestions how to achieve and demonstrate purposeful case selection and saturation given the levels of analysis.
