What makes case studies such a time-tested and exciting pedagogical tool in management education? Is longevity of learning through cases longer than through traditional lectures? Given the fact that it requires a different type of training, a different kind of the preparation for the faculty, is it worth the trouble? Is there anything like ‘too much’ of cases? Does the success and delivery of case differ across audiences? Does the culture of student body matter in deciding the success of case study? Do cases really build the ground work of great decision making, really grows great decision makers?

The panel discussion ‘Teaching and Learning with Cases’, organised by the Centre for Case Development at the Indian School of Business (ISB) during the  22nd AIMS Annual Management Education Convention, attempted to address the above questions.

The panel had a voice mix of academia, industry, and business school alum. The discussion focus was how case teaching method adds value to traditional management pedagogy and what the roles are for the various stakeholders of a case study – the academia, the student, the industry.

Moderated by Professor Rajesh Chakrabarti, Assistant Professor Finance at ISB, the panel included Anil Gupta, Joint Managing Director, Havells India, Rishikesh Krishnan, Professor and Area Chair, Corporate Strategy and Policy Area, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, Robert Jelly, Executive Director Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), and Parag Saigoankar, Regional Managing Director, Deloitte, and Ivey Alum.
Professor Chakrabarti mentioned that case study is typically the most “distinctive part of management education”, and that it is slowly expanding its reach from the insides of B School classrooms into boardrooms and into other contexts of business. “It is quite unique in its pedagogical style, it livens up theory, and it is a challenge to execute it. As a faculty member, I can assure you, it takes much greater preparation to put through a successful case discussion than it does to go in the classroom and lecture.”

 Jelly elucidated how CIMA used case studies in their professional examinations, and how students felt that for the first time ‘everything was coming alive’.  He also shared that a CIMA survey of employers in 100 countries across globe, about what skills they necessarily required of their professional finance employees, showed that employers needed employees with skills of negotiation, decision making, analytics, persuasion, synthesis, and choosing from options. These skills were missing in the graduates and postgraduates. Case studies, Jelly shared, closed the gap. He pointed out that it was necessary to contextualize the case study - a time, setting and industry which students could relate to. “Set the case in a ‘live’ context”, he said.

Professor Krishnan described himself as a case student (IIM A grad), a case writer, a case teacher and a case evangelist. “From the arena of practice, we know that the challenges faced by managers are much more multi-faceted and complex than what a typical text book depicts. Cases try to bring into the classrooms real-world simulations,” he said.

He also added that considering the fact that that most business decisions are incredibly more complex than one would imagine, it is useful that a case, in most situations, does not have a unique solution. “In fact we encourage students to believe that there are multiple solutions to each case situation and that is how we distinguish cases from simple problems,” he explained.   He also warned against one of the danger of using cases - “they sometimes de-emphasize theory. They become a series of stories. There is a danger that students might just remember the stories and without being able to learn from the cases.”

Gupta brought in the industry perspective. What does a company stand to gain by agreeing to be a part of a case study? “When schools approach us for developing case studies, initially we think what is it in for me? Is it some sort of an ego satisfaction that my company’s name is being discussed in business schools? But I soon started realising that when the case discussed in the class room, I come to know about what the contemporary world is thinking about a particular situation inside my company. It just completely opened up my mind.  As a corporate it becomes a social responsibility to provide such material to the B schools so that the students see the real-world situations,” he noted. He also insisted that the academia must closely work with the industry as situations and solutions keep changing over a period of time.

Saigoankar recalled how at Ivey he had to go through about 800 cases in two years. “When you look at the students on the campuses, when you see in their eyes the energy and the passion that they have, I think it is the responsibility of Indian corporate as well as academia to infuse and give them opportunities to give them a chance to apply some of their learning’s through case studies, “ he said.

He explained how Indian corporates face the challenge of being able to produce enough of ‘New India’ managers.  “Companies in India and China are today, boardroom topics for any global organisation, their ability to have content and leverage some of the experiences that are very unique in an Asian, and specifically the Indian context, is clearly the foundation for us to progress on the case method. We will look forward to seeing case methods and cases increasing in India, making sure we can build more of these ‘New India’ managers that corporate India requires,” he concluded.