Abstract In recent years the research method of case study has received extensive attention in the field of business administration. Nevertheless, the general picture of its development status, including what progress has been achieved and what existing problems are to be tackled next, is still a question open for discussion. Therefore, based on related research in the past decade, this paper focuses on the development status, application prospect and contextualized depth of case study. Results demonstrate that case study in business administration has taken a great leap forward during the past ten years’ practice. Completing the transition from budding stage to mature phase with a considerable scale and broader application prospect, case study has gradually become an ever-increasingly important tool when exploring top research topics. However, due to insufficient understanding of what is theory and what is the discovery of theory, many researches lack certain theoretical contributions (like new construct, relationship, or mechanism), which in turns leads to unsatisfactory research conclusions.
