The Art and Craft of Case Writing

William Naumes, Margaret J. Naumes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317458326
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Filled with helpful checklists, charts, and suggestions for further reading, this practical, comprehensive, and multidisciplinary guide takes readers through the entire case-writing process, including skills for writing both teaching cases and research cases. This edition includes new discussions of students as case writers, and how to interpret and respond to reviews, as well as updated and expanded material on video, multimedia and Internet cases.

1

What Is a Case and Why Write One?

Case studies form an important pedagogical tool in many fields of study. The use of case studies allows students to participate actively in the learning process. To be able to use the case method in our courses, we must have a continuous source of fresh case studies to maintain the interest of our students. Cases must also provide value to the learning process. The ideas for case studies can come from a wide variety of sources.

Case studies are more than teaching tools, however. Using examples from real experiences, we can show the links between theory and actual occurrences, and can bring our research into the classroom. Cases also provide the data for in-depth traditional research, and are particularly useful for exploring causality and other linkages behind survey data. Both teaching cases and research cases can be submitted to refereed journals (though still, for the most part, different journals).

There must be an objective in developing a case study for it to make sense. Many times, there is a gap in our knowledge or understanding of a specific concept that should be analyzed and explored. There are also gaps in the range of suitable materials available for student learning. Locally based cases not only catch students’ interests, but also help involve them in their region, its politics, economics, culture, organizations, and issues—and, on occasion, may enable them to meet the characters from their readings. Bringing your own work into class can be very rewarding. Students build on your obvious interest in the topic. One of our objectives is always curiosity; we want to know more about each issue or how the case’s organization really operates. For all of these reasons, we write cases.

DEFINITION OF A CASE

A case is a factual description of events that happened at some point in the past. Fictional stories may meet some pedagogical objectives, but they do not have the intellectual rigor of a case based in factual research, although they may be appropriate and acceptable in some disciplines. The case is designed to meet specific pedagogical or research objectives of the case writer. As such, the case must provide sufficient material concerning the situation and the environment surrounding it to meet those objectives.

Since the 1800s the case method has been used in a variety of forms as a pedagogical tool in medicine, psychology, sociology, and law. In these fields, the vehicle used is a case history of an event, individual, group, or decision. The case history frequently includes the results of the actions as well as the actions themselves. Based on the use of case studies in those fields, the method was adapted for use in the study and teaching of managerial decision making. Cases were first used for this purpose at the Harvard Business School in the early 1900s. The school developed a series of case studies based on field research and used them to study decisions in all of the functional areas of a typical business program. The method spread, to the point that it is now used not only in most business programs, but also in other fields including agriculture, education, political science, nursing, chemistry, engineering, project management, and others.

A case study is designed to elicit discussion and analysis of a particular situation. A case may first be used to allow students to learn how to evaluate a situation or identify problems in a variety of settings. Based on their analyses, students can then make predictions about future events. In teaching, as in research, cases can also be used to explore the relationships within a setting or organization, or to observe changes over a period of time.

Cases are also designed to provide the basis for analysis of the decision-making process under a variety of conditions. This is true for many disciplines. Students can develop their ability to determine appropriate criteria by which alternative solution sets can be measured. The students can then develop those alternatives and perform the analysis to develop an appropriate solution. Finally, the case can be used to help students develop an understanding of the problems involved in implementing the selected solution. In this manner, the case can be used to follow the entire decision process from analysis through to implementation. As an example, teachers can learn how to understand and react to different issues or problems that may occur in the classroom. Of greatest importance, cases can be used to help students learn how to think, plan, and reason.

Case studies provide a means by which readers can learn through the discussion of actual situations and circumstances, by following the actions and analyzing the thoughts and decision processes of real people, faced with real problems, in real settings. This is true for heuristic decisions where there may be no “best answer,” as well as for algorithmic models, which are designed to provide an optimal solution. Students are often uncomfortable with cases’ ambiguities, the lack of a single “right” answer. Understanding how to evaluate a situation or make a decision, however, is often as important an outcome for students as the specifics of her or his discussion, even more so if modern students prefer hands-on learning by doing (see Brown, 2000). As a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has stated, “You want them to think about complicated things” (Turkle, 2010). From the analyses of a series of such cases, students can develop the ability to apply these processes and extrapolate their understanding of the underlying concepts and theories to situations they encounter in the future. They acquire the ability to discover the nuances of similar but different situations and how to adapt their decisions to those differences.

The case method is an active pedagogical process as opposed to the passive process that ensues from lectures. Students, therefore, learn by performing all the various analyses and activities themselves, instead of being told how it is done. For most students and purposes, learning by doing provides far better and more lasting results than learning through lectures.

How Students Learn

The goal of any instructional material was defined by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development as: “To stimulate and nourish students’ own mental elaborations of knowledge and to help them grow in their capacity to monitor and guide their own learning and thinking” (Resnick and Klopfer, 1989, 4). As will be discussed in Chapter 2, cases lend themselves to this process. A case is a form of teaching in which the student must involve himself or herself in order to learn. What is taught is not just a set of facts about a specific situation, but also a process of thinking, of analysis, of problem solving, and even of evaluation and judgment. Students learn these skills by practicing them in a “real” situation, the case, thus developing the thinking tools that will be needed when their experiences call for real decisions.

One approach to teaching students how to think is to embed “thinking” in the regular content of a course. Many instructors explicitly outline the process of how to approach a problem (or a case), and then give students the opportunity to practice that process. Cases provide a rich environment for this type of learning. Each case presents a different set of details, yet students may apply a similar type of analysis. Once mastered, students are ready to move on to more complex skills as well as more advanced course concepts.

Many educational researchers are coming to favor an immersion approach to the development of thinking. Although there is no precise definition of this approach, Prawat (1991, 8) summarizes its main arguments: “There is general support, for instance, for the view that ideas, as opposed to skills and processes, should be assigned the highest priority in promoting thought and understanding in the classroom. There is also general agreement that discourse plays a key role in this regard.” The immersion approach is based on the concept that students learn best when they derive the underlying ideas for themselves, out of the material presented. They are learning how to think by thinking, rather than being told how to approach the subject. Cases are among the educational materials best adapted to allow students an active role in their own learning. Action research, a form of learning used extensively in fields such as education and medicine, takes the further step of having students develop their own cases based on their experiences, then using those cases to apply analytical techniques and derive meaning.

Cases are also versatile in their adaptability to the ways in which different students learn. Most people have a preferred learning style or way in which they approach experiences and develop meaning from them. There are a number of models of this process. For illustration we will use the model developed by David Kolb (summarized in Kolb, Osland, and Rubin, 1995, 48–54), which identifies four basic learning style types: converger, diverger, assimilator, and accommodator. A converger relies most heavily on abstract conceptualization, which is an analytical, logical approach, and on active experimentation. His or her strength is the practical application of ideas. The diverger prefers concrete experience, which looks at every situation as unique and tends to make judgments based on personal feelings and reflective observation, which takes an “objective observer” approach. She or he is likely to be strong in imaginative ability, and to be able to see a situation from many perspectives. The assimilator relies on abstract conceptualization, like the converger, and on reflective observation, like the diverger. His or her strength is the ability to create patterns out of discrete observations or facts, and is likely not to be particularly interested in applications. An accommodator prefers concrete experience and active experimentation. She or he likes to learn by doing, and is likely to solve problems by trial and error, rather than through logical reasoning. Anecdotal research suggests that those students of the twenty-first century who have been immersed in technology for their whole lives (“digital natives”) would be accommodators, due to their preference for experimental learning (Brown, 2000).

Cases work in a variety of ways that make them adaptable to more than one learning style. A converger could apply theories or concepts to the facts in the case, to bring order and meaning to the situation described. A diverger is likely to be intrigued by the multiple details and viewpoints in the case. The assimilator can look for patterns in the data of the case, and develop his or her own hypotheses about what has led to this point and what will happen next. The accommodator is most likely to appreciate the “real-world” aspects and the opportunity to practice her or his decision-making skills. It may not be possible to use each case to involve all of these learning styles. However, cases can be used effectively for a wide range of educational objectives, as will be discussed in Chapter 2.

Case Types

A case is, essentially, a research study with a sample of one. The “one n” sample is the particular event, situation, organization, or selection of individuals that is presented in written or other forms. It provides readers with a vehicle to discuss, analyze, and develop criteria and potential solutions for the problems presented in the case.

There are many ways to categorize cases: factual versus fictional (which, as already noted, we would argue are not cases at all), field researched versus library researched versus personal experience, teaching versus research, evaluative or analytical versus decision focus. Cases also come in a wide variety of lengths and complexities. They vary from one or two paragraph stories found at the end of textbook chapters to twenty plus page descriptions of an entire corporation’s strategic decision making or of the negotiations for an international treaty. There could also be a series of cases that explore events over time or in different aspects of the organization or issue.

In disciplines such as anthropology or medicine, cases are written after extensive personal observation in the field. Many cases in business, political science, health care, and engineering are also based on interviews and personal observation. In some fields, where the focus is on objective data or where members of the organization have been unwilling to talk “on the record,” or where there are significant ethical or legal issues that create problems of confidentiality, research may be done primarily through published or public sources. Cases can also be written from the author’s own personal experience, although it may be difficult to present the material objectively. Issues of data collection will be discussed in Chapter 3.

As already noted, there are many potential objectives in writing a case. The greatest difference is between cases written primarily as a vehicle for research and those that are written primarily for the classroom. Research cases, discussed in more detail in Chapter 4, are intended to develop or test a hypothesis. These cases present both the data on a situation, an organization, or test subjects, and the analysis of that data, including linkages to the relevant theories or hypotheses. Teaching cases, which are the primary focus of this book, present only the direct observations and facts, serving as a vehicle for students to apply their skills in analysis and decision making. The author of a teaching case is, however, expected to provide a detailed analysis in the form of an Instructor’s Manual, which includes both pedagogy and theory. The organization and content of cases and their supplements (such as case series and extended explanatory notes) will be covered in Chapters 6, 7, and 9. Instructors’ Manuals will be developed in Chapters 5 and 8. The match of length, data, organization, and objectives will be explored in detail in Chapter 2.

A major pedagogical distinction may be made between evaluative and decision-focus cases. A case may be designed primarily as a description of events and decisions that have occurred in the past with the intent of having the readers learn lessons from the results of those actions. These cases are often referred to as evaluative cases, since the major or even sole purpose is to have readers analyze and evaluate the events described in the case. This is the analog of using case studies to replicate previous research, or to test previously proposed hypotheses.

An alternative, and usually richer form of a case study is one where the readers are expected not only to analyze and evaluate past events, but also to develop criteria and decisions for future actions by the principals presented in the case. These cases are often referred to as decision-focus cases. They are the analog of using case studies to develop hypotheses and theories. Critical incidents are a short, highly focused form of decision-focus cases.

All of these types of cases have many factors in common, however. They are descriptions of real events and situations. Moreover, a case presents the events and situation in a factual manner, much in the same way that a reporter describes an event for a newspaper. In a teaching case, value-laden judgments and statements are left to the Instructor’s Manual, much as newspapers leave this approach to the editorial page. In a research case, however, the value judgments are essentially analysis of the facts to prove or develop hypotheses, and may be interwoven with the factual content, as will be discussed in Chapter 4.

A Real Situation

By the definition of the North American Case Research Association and many other groups of case writers, including the authors of this book, a case is a description of a real situation. Although the case may di...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Prologue: The Power of Storytelling
• Chapter 1. What Is a Case and Why Write One?
• Chapter 2. Objectives—Key to the Case
• Chapter 3. Finding a Case Site and Gathering Data
• Chapter 4. Research Cases
• Chapter 5. The Instructor’s Manual, Part 1
• Chapter 6. Organizing the Case
• Chapter 7. Testing and Refining the Teaching Case
• Chapter 8. The Instructor’s Manual, Part 2
• Chapter 9. Notes, Case Series, and Other Supplements
• Chapter 10. Alternative Case Formats: Video, Multimedia, and Live Case Studies
• Appendix I. Case Example—First Draft
• Appendix II. Instructor’s Manual—First Draft
• Appendix III. Case Example—Published Version
• Appendix IV. Instructor’s Manual—Final Version
• References
• For Further Reading
• About the Authors
• Index