1. Why Case Studies?

2. How to deal with them?

3. The report
- Interesting, real world situations
with insights into the studies of
management
- Decision making
- may become easier
- better quality of decisions
- faster decision making
- Working in teams
- Different from normal homework
design
- Often more than one answer
- depends on assumptions and
problem definition
- Time is well spent
- confidence in a decision-making
position
- parallels to real-world situations
- Problems with quantity of information
- first too much/later not enough
- Solution:
- seek additional information
- make assumptions
- Decide which questions to ask
- Instructor will be more interested in
the analyses and process than in
absolute correctness
- Read the case thoroughly
- Define the central issue
- Define the firms goals
- Identify the constraints to the
problem
- Identify all the relevant
alternatives
- Select the best alternative
- Develop an implementation plan
Lecture
Knowledge
Management
More on the Question of
June 2004

Focus
 Is there one issue or many issues?
 The answer may not be simple or obvious
 Often it makes sense to organize the
problem statement in a hierarchical way
 A single over-riding issue
 Additional issues, but usually subsidiary to the
main issue
 Triage
 Deal with most important areas first
How to deal with a Case Study
7
- Written or oral
- Describes the solution of the case
- Express yourself clearly
- Explain the analyses and logic
- Separate "facts" from opinion
- Lay out a plan for
implementating the decision
- Short, well-organized report is
better than a long, unorganized one
- Do not include trivial matters
- Typical sections:
- executive summary
- problem statement
- alternatives
- conclusion
- implementation
- State what has occurred – what is the
case about?
- Describe the context
- changes in firm, industry, market
- Typical contents:
- description of the case situation
- problem statement
- analyses of the key alternatives
- conclusion
- implementation
- Be able to comment on other ideas