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WHAT IS CASE STUDY ANALYSIS?

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WHAT IS CASE STUDY ANALYSIS?
A case study presents an account of what happened to a business or industry over a
number of years. It chronicles the events that managers had to deal with, such as changes
in the competitive environment, and charts the managers' response, which usually
involved changing the business- or corporate-level strategy.
Cases prove valuable in a course for several reasons. First, cases provide you, the student,
with experience of organizational problems that you probably have not had the
opportunity to experience firsthand. In a relatively short period of time, you will have the
chance to appreciate and analyze the problems faced by many different companies and to
understand how managers tried to deal with them.
Second, cases illustrate what you have learned. The meaning and implication of this
information are made clearer when they are applied to case studies. The theory and
concepts help reveal what is going on in the companies studied and allow you to evaluate
the solutions that specify companies adopted to deal with their problems. Consequently,
when you analyze cases, you will be like a detective who, with a set of conceptual tools,
probes what happened and what or who was responsible and then marshals the evidence
that provides the solution. Top managers enjoy the thrill of testing their problem-solving
abilities in the real world. It is important to remember, after all, that no one knows what
the right answer is. All that managers can do is to make the best guess. In fact, managers
say repeatedly that they are happy if they are right only half the time in solving strategic
problems. Management is an uncertain game, and using cases to see how theory can be
put into practice is one way of improving your skills of diagnostic investigation.
Third, case studies provide you with the opportunity to participate in class and to gain
experience in presenting your ideas to others. Instructors may sometimes call on students
as a group to identify what is going on in a case, and through classroom discussion the
issues in and solutions to the case problem will reveal themselves. In such a situation,
you will have to organize your views and conclusions so that you can present them to the
class. Your classmates may have analyzed the issues differently from you, and they will
want you to argue your points before they will accept your conclusions; so be prepared
for debate. This is how decisions are made in the actual business world.
Instructors also may assign an individual, but more commonly a group, to analyze the
case before the whole class. The individual or group probably will be responsible for a
thirty- to forty-minute presentation of the case to the class. That presentation must cover
the issues involved, the problems facing the company, and a series of recommendations
for resolving the problems. The discussion then will be thrown open to the class, and you
will have to defend your ideas. Through such discussions and presentations, you will
experience how to convey your ideas effectively to others. Remember that a great deal of
managers' time is spent in these kinds of situations, presenting their ideas and engaging in
discussion with other managers, who have their own views about what is going on. Thus,
you will experience in the classroom the actual process of what goes on in a business
setting, and this will serve you well in your future career.

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If you work in groups to analyze case studies, you also will learn about the group process
involved in working as a team. When people work in groups, it is often difficult to
schedule time and allocate responsibility for the case analysis. There are always group
members who shirk their responsibilities and group members who are so sure of their
own ideas that they try to dominate the group's analysis. Most business negotiations take
place in groups, however, and it is best if you learn about these problems now.
ANALYZING A CASE STUDY
As just mentioned, the purpose of the case study is to let you apply the concepts you've
learned when you analyze the issues facing a specific company. To analyze a case study,
therefore, you must examine closely the issues with which the company is confronted.
Most often you will need to read the case several times - once to grasp the overall picture
of what is happening to the company and then several times more to discover and grasp
the specific problems.
Generally, detailed analysis of a case study should include eight areas:
1. The history, development, and growth of the company over time
2. The identification of the company's internal strengths and weaknesses
3. The nature of the external environment surrounding the company
4. A SWOT analysis
5. The kind of corporate-level strategy pursued by the company
6. The nature of the company's business-level strategy
7. The company's structure and control systems and how they match its strategy
8. Recommendations
To analyze a case, you need to apply what you've learned to each of these areas. We offer
a summary of the steps you can take to analyze the case material for each of the eight
points we just noted.
1. Analyze the company's history, development, and growth. A convenient way
to investigate how a company's past strategy and structure affect it in the present
is to chart the critical incidents in its history - that is, the events that were the most
unusual or the most essential for its development into the company it is today.
Some of the events have to do with its founding, its initial products, how it makes
new-product market decisions, and how it developed and chose functional
competencies to pursue. Its entry into new businesses and shifts in its main lines
of business are also important milestones to consider.
2. Identify the company's internal strengths and weaknesses. Once the historical
profile is completed, you can begin the SWOT analysis. Use all the incidents you
have charted to develop an account of the company's strengths and weaknesses as
they have emerged historically. Examine each of the value creation functions of
the company, and identify the functions in which the company is currently strong
and currently weak. Some companies might be weak in marketing; some might be

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WHAT IS CASE STUDY ANALYSIS? A case study presents an account of what happened to a business or industry over a number of years. It chronicles the events that managers had to deal with, such as changes in the competitive environment, and charts the managers' response, which usually involved changing the business- or corporate-level strategy. Cases prove valuable in a course for several reasons. First, cases provide you, the student, with experience of organizational problems that you probably have not had the opportunity to experience firsthand. In a relatively short period of time, you will have the chance to appreciate and analyze the problems faced by many different companies and to understand how managers tried to deal with them. Second, cases illustrate what you have learned. The meaning and implication of this information are made clearer when they are applied to case studies. The theory and concepts help reveal what is going on in the companies studied and allow you to evaluate the solutions that specify companies adopted to deal with their problems. Consequently, when you analyze cases, you will be like a detective who, with a set of conceptual tools, probes what happened and what or who was responsible and then marshals the evidence that provides the solution. Top managers enjoy the thrill of testing their problem-solving abilities in the real world. It is important to remember, after all, that no one knows what the right answer is. All that managers can do is ...
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Awesome! Perfect study aid.

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