Question: CASE ANALYSIS GUIDELINES

WHY USE CASES?

Case studies allow a learning-by-doing approach.The material in the case provides the data for analysis and decision making. Cases require you to diagnose and make decisions about the situation and to defend those decisions to your peers.

OBJECTIVES OF THE CASE METHOD

1. Helping you to acquire the skills of putting textbook knowledge about management into practice.

2. Getting you out of the habit of being a receiver of facts, concepts, and techniques, and into the habit of diagnosing problems, analyzing and evaluating alternatives, and formulating workable plans of action.

3. Training you to work out answers and solutions for yourself, as opposed to relying upon the authoritative crutch of the professor or a textbook.

4. Providing you with exposure to a range of firms and managerial situations (which might take a lifetime to experience personally), thus offering you a basis for comparison when you begin your own management career.

HOW TO PREPARE A CASE

1. Begin your analysis by reading the case once for familiarity.

2. On the second reading, attempt to gain full command of the facts, organizational goals, objectives, strategies, policies, symptoms of problems, problems, basic causes of problems, unresolved issues, and roles of key individuals.

3. Who are the key players in this situation? What are their roles and their styles?

4. Arrive at a solid evaluation of the organization, based on the information in the case. Developing the ability to evaluate organizations and size up their situations is the key to case analysis.

5. Decide what you think the organization needs to do to improve its performance and to set forth a workable plan of action.