I have a response to Phil Rutherford's remarks about "the traditional
case study approach - this is what happened in XYZ situation, how does
it apply to yours? If a student comes back and says 'it doesn't apply'
then we can't mark them as wrong - but that isn't what we're trying to
do is it? � Our solution is to teach principles and not practices. At
least that way everyone can identify applications to their situations."
This philosophy presumes cases are a stereotypical event that is the
basis for a script. "Using scripts, people have sets of expectations
based on numerous previous episodes that are sufficiently similar to
allow a person to make inferences when details are not explicitly stated
(Shank and Abelson, 1977). Script-based training is appropriate for
certain skills-based and trade school learning.
For management training and business school purposes, a script-based
training approach is, in my opinion, very shallow and not appropriate
for students. Case studies, as others and I have written them, are
intended to provide a rich context around a complex management problem.
Students need to learn to discern what is important in the context and
what can be safely ignored, separating the signals from noise as it
were. And then developing a solution to the problem appropriate to that
context. I think Suzanne de Janasz called this entire process "the
trials and tribulations". Thus a student should not come back and say it
doesn't apply. She should say, the relevant factors are X and my
solution is Y and it is appropriate for the following reasons.
The problem with teaching "principles" is discussed in the current
educational literature as "inert knowledge". Students know how to take a
square root, but don't know how to apply it in situations where a square
root is called for. In capstone strategy courses, we hopefully assume
some principles are known and introduce a few new ones. As Ruth Axelrod
so neatly put it, the student should "articulate the issues, analyze
them using course concepts, draw conclusions and make recommendations"
The emphasis is on the process of applying principles.
One problem with students writing live cases is that they tend to report
facts and what media writers report. To me, writing the case is 10% of
the assignment. The rest is writing a "teaching note" (management
training note) stating what issues seem to be important and what issues
seem to be noise. On the first pass, there are few issues cited. As the
class discussed issues important to a variety of live cases (each
student or team does a separate live case), they learn from each other
about contextual clues and take a lot of notes. Not all issues "apply",
but do seem to inspire others to see new issues in their contexts. On
second pass, the students can demonstrate some true learning and it is
fit to be graded. (I sometimes use a third pass for those who intend to
major in strategy and want a chance to dig deeper). So live cases can
work well too, when there is a clear plan and purpose to the exercise.
Reference:
Shank, Roger C. and Robert Abelson 1977, Scripts, Plans, Goals, and
Understanding, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, N.J.
Regards, Prof. John Naman