Volume #	Number #	DRAFT: 26 JAN 2016

AUTHOR NAMES

WRITING A MUMA CASE REVIEW CASE

Writing a discussion case for MCR seems like a lot of work…Will it be worth the effort for me to do so?

Mary Bailey, a fictional faculty member at a non-existent university pondered this question as she looked over the formatting instructions for case studies submitted to the recently launched publication outlet: Muma Case Review (MCR). Everything about this particular outlet seemed to be different from the research journals that she was used to: the intended audience, the review process, the writing style. Even the formatting instructions—these were written in the form of a discussion case!

Bailey’s decision of whether or not to proceed was influenced by a number of issues. First, there was the question of whether or not she really wanted to write a discussion case. Discussion cases, it turned out, were very different from research cases in style and focus. Their audience also tended to be different—although faculty members chose what cases to use, it was ultimately the reaction of students to the case that determined its success of failure. Furthermore, discussion cases were nearly always constructed around the need to make a decision or create an action plan. For this reason—unlike their research case counterparts—discussion cases did not typically argue for cause-and effect relationships or present a theory. Instead, they laid out the decision to be made and then provided the reader with sufficient information about its context to allow for meaningful analysis.

Even if she decided that she wanted to write a discussion case study, there was the question of whether or not MCR was the most suitable outlet. Given that she was teaching in a business-related field, topic was not a problem. But MCR was a new outlet, and had a review process that varied from the double-blind peer review that she was used to. Would her dean even treat a MCR case study as research?

Balancing these concerns was the knowledge that if she were to write a MCR case study, she could immediately put it to use in her own classroom. That was something she had rarely been able to do with her more conventional academic research. Moreover, since MCR made its cases available for free to an international audience, which meant her case could end up being used globally.

Yes, she thought to herself, this was not going to be an easy decision to make.

The Case Method

MCR was launched to support a pedagogy known as the case method. Originating in business schools, the approach was about 100 years old. It consisted of two key elements: 1) the use of discussion cases—such as those that MCR published—and 2) instruction through facilitated class discussions.

Origins

The notion that business could be the subject of advanced graduate study is a relatively recent one. The earliest graduate business schools, those established at the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), Dartmouth (Tuck) and Harvard (Harvard Business School) all represented a radical idea: that business could be a profession, rather than a trade. Commercial schools—teaching practical skills such as typing and bookkeeping had existed throughout the 19th century. These new graduate schools emerged during the same period that the idea of a professional manager became prevalent. This transition ushered in a period of labor unrest and “trust-busting”. Professional schools were needed, it was then argued, to restore respectability to business as a career choice. Rakesh Khurana, in his 2007 history of business education: From Hired Hands to Hired Guns, describes an underlying motivation for the founding of the world’s first MBA degree at HBS as follows:

Unspoken, but audible in the background, lurked the wishes of not just those Harvard alumni interested in business education (and with money to support it) but also of the Brahmin patriarchs such as those portrayed by Samuel Eliot Morrison in his chronicle of Boston youth prior to the turn of the century. Brahmin fathers were perhaps chagrined by the career choices of increasing numbers of their sons but were certainly eager to the respectability of a Harvard “professional graduate education” available to them upon graduation from the college. Indeed, of the fifty-eight men enrolled in Harvard Business School’s inaugural class, forty-two held Harvard undergraduate degrees.

One of the major innovations introduced in the HBS MBA was the use of discussion cases as a teaching tool. For 40 years or so, HBS remained the principal practitioner of this approach. In the late 1950s, however, business education in the U.S. was studied by two prestigious foundations: Ford and Carnegie. The resulting reports were scathing critiques of existing practices. Over the next decade this had two major impacts. On the research side, business schools moved towards the “scientific method”. On the teaching side, however, the case method became widely adopted as HBS, in particular, was funded to launch workshops for faculty members that taught the approach.

Since that time, the case method has become a staple of many of the most prestigious business schools around the U.S. and in Europe. Its overall presence in management education has diminished however. The case method tends to be theory-agnostic; focused instead on developing practical judgment skills that can be applied to different situations. As such, it often seems out-of-place at institutions where the overriding goal of research is theory-building.

Discussion Case Studies

The case method is built around a discussion case study. Unlike the “case studies” that appear frequently in textbooks to present a real world example, or the business cases that appear on corporate web sites to illustrate the successful use of a product or service, discussion cases provide a detailed description of a real-world business, organizational or personal situation for which one or more decisions must be made. It is in the analysis of these decisions or the creation of plans that judgment is required.

The decision-oriented focus of the case is critical. Whereas case studies developed for research or illustrative purposes provide stories that describe the outcome of a particular situation, the discussion case stops at the point where the decision must be made. The participants in the case discussion then examine the situation from the perspective of central figures on the case—referred to as the case protagonists—and attempt to come up with sensible decisions. In most of these situations, there is no right or wrong decision. Rather, there are some decisions that make sense, and many more that probably do not. The goal of analyzing the case study is to come up with at least one sensible course of action, and to eliminate as many bad choices as possible.

Discussion case studies tend to be relatively long, since few situations encountered in organizations can adequately be described in a paragraph or two. Normally, discussion case studies are divided into two sections, the body of the case and exhibits containing tables, illustrations and reference materials. The length serves two purposes. First, it allows the situation to be described in whatever detail is necessary—although even the longest case study will require the reader to make some assumptions since it is impossible to cover everything. By the same token, the length of the case means that some of the details mentioned in the case will not be particularly relevant to the decision. This is valuable because being able to distinguish between important and unimportant facts is necessary in any non-trivial decision. In organizations, an unambiguous roadmap that identifies what you really should know is almost never available.

Facilitated Case Discussions

Exhibit 1 contains excerpts from a fictional discussion taken from a recent book on the case method. A typical case discussion, as conducted at schools such as HBS, takes place in four stages: 1) student preparation, 2) the opening, 3) the discussion, and 4) the summation.

Preparation

Before a useful case discussion can take place, students must be prepared. Getting ready for a case discussion is a time-consuming process; even experienced MBA students typically require about two hours if they are going to be adequately prepared. While it varies across individuals, case preparation normally involves:

Reading the case to get the “big picture”

Going through the case in detail, taking notes on the body and the case exhibits

Preparing an outline of key points likely to be encountered during the discussion

Some faculty members choose to assign pre-case study questions while others prefer to let students determine relevant questions on their own. The advantage of pre-case questions is that they tend to focus the student’s preparation on the most important issues of the case. That is also their disadvantage. After all, in real world settings what is important and unimportant is often hard to distinguish.

In case method programs students often get together to compare notes and ideas during their preparation. Unlike some types of homework—where such collaboration is prohibited and treated as a form of “cheating”—virtually all faculty members who lead discussion classes actively encourage students to get together while preparing their cases prior to class.

The opening

In order to start a case discussion, the faculty member—usually referred to as the facilitator—will typically call upon a student to open. There are a number of variations in this process. The first involves asking for a volunteer to open versus the “cold call”. In the case of the latter, the facilitator chooses a student to open without any advance notice. It is, by far, the more common approach in programs that rely heavily on the case method.

The cold call offers several advantages over using volunteers to open, and one key disadvantage. The advantages are that it provides a strong motivation for students to come into the class well-prepared. Trying to open when unprepared is an experience that few students would care to repeat. Along the same lines, it provides an alternative to forcing students to prepare by making them write a summary of each case prior to class—a requirement annoying to students and instructors alike. Finally, as the semester progresses, it provides the facilitator with the opportunity to encourage participation from students who have been reluctant to contribute to discussions in the early classes. Naturally, some students view this as a mixed blessing.

The big disadvantage of the cold call is what occurs when the student asked to open is, in fact, unprepared. There are two general approaches that students seem to take in such situations. The first is to brazen it out, attempting to open and read the case simultaneously. This approach is rarely successful and, to discourage such attempts in the future, facilitators will often starting interrupting the student’s opening with questions that cannot be answered with casual skimming. The second approach to being unprepared is to “pass”. This allows the facilitator to move on to another student without wasting the class time but also informs the facilitator that the student had come to class unprepared. For students who had actively participated in prior discussions, such a pass would not necessarily have serious consequences. For students who have participated little, however, the lost opportunity to open could seriously impact their course grade.

The manner in which the facilitator asks a student to open also varies. Some facilitators ask the opener a very specific question. Others choose a more general question, such as “What do you think [the protagonist’s name] should do?” or simply ask “Would you care to open?”. While the opening progresses, the facilitator will often write an outline of what is being said on the classroom’s board. One mark of a good opening is that the outline on the board makes sense, and seems to be well organized.

The most effectively openings for a typical discussion case tend to proceed along the following lines:

The issue being faced is briefly described

The recommended decision or decisions are summarized

Key elements of background are presented

The rationale for the recommendations is presented

Students often find themselves starting with Item III, making the opening like a detective story as the facilitator and class wait for Item II—not presented until the very end (if at all). The suspense value generated by this approach rarely justifies the confusion causes by the flood of seemingly-irrelevant details that occurs in presenting the background first. In addition, the best openings proceed on the assumption that the rest of the class and the facilitator are aware of the case facts; the purpose of the opening should therefore be to separate the important from the unimportant. Good openings do not simply rehash the case itself.

The discussion

The heart of the case method is the discussion of the case. The assumption here is that even thorough preparation of a case does not guarantee that a student will understand all the nuances of a particular situation. By discussing the case with others—under the direction of an experienced facilitator—many of these nuances come to the surface. Often, what is said leads participants to rethink their initial recommendations. This is viewed as a good thing. If the process of discussing a case led to no changes in point of view, there would be no point in having such discussions.

The facilitator’s role in the case discussion is very different from that of the faculty lecturer. When a class comes in well-prepared, the vast majority of the facilitator’s comments will be in the form of questions to participants. From time to time, the facilitator may point out a case fact or add background information. On the whole, however, the best discussion leader is the one that elicits most or all information from the participants themselves.

Aside from asking questions, the facilitator will sometimes play the devil’s advocate—making a case for an alternative viewpoint or solution when the class appears to be reaching a consensus. A facilitator will also sometimes attempt to lead the class towards a solution then, as consensus starts to form, will raise questions that highlight its weaknesses. Participants quickly come to recognize that such techniques are used to serve the needs of the discussion process; they do not necessarily (or even usually) represent the facilitator’s personal views.

In a case method course, discussion participation typically accounts for a large proportion of the student’s overall grade (at HBS, more than 50% is the usual, with exams counting for the rest). Judging participation, however, is highly subjective. That being said, there are certain types of contributions that are nearly always welcome and are likely to add to a student’s overall assessment. These include:

Comments linking a situation in one case to another case that was previously discussed

Comments that bring in ideas from other classes

Comments that link a participant’s own personal experiences to the case

Comments that offer a well-thought-out competing point of view to an issue where the class seems to be in agreement

Comments that offer an integrative perspective that goes beyond the specific focus of the case (e.g., relating to ethics, involving business functions beyond the specific area of a course, such as MIS).

Similarly, there are some comments that are unlikely to add much to a student’s participation tally. These include:

Simple statements of agreement that do not offer new evidence

Arbitrary changes of topic during the course of an active discussion that has not started to wind down

Comments that relate to an earlier topic from which the discussion has already moved on

Comments that appear genuinely disrespectful of the opinions of individual participants

With respect to the last of these, some common sense must be applied. Some facilitators use an exaggerated style that involves intentionally making provocative remarks; some students mimic that style as well. Such parody should not be confused with genuine disrespect.

The summary

At the end of each discussion, a facilitator will generally spend 10-15 minutes reflecting on the discussion. Sometimes, the actual decision or set of decisions made by the organization or individual featured in the case will also be specified. The goal of such reflection is generally not to identify the “right” decision or to imply that whatever decisions were made were the correct ones. Rather, it is to help students better understand the types of situations to which the lessons of the case might apply.

In case discussions early in a semester, the facilitator may also use the summary to introduce frameworks that might apply to later cases. Such frameworks are normally offered as something that might be useful, rather than as theory that must be applied in later cases. Generally speaking, adherents of the case method tend to be theory-agnostic. They have no objection to theory being applied where it is useful, but are reluctant to propose any theory or framework as being relevant to all situations.

Muma Case Review

The initial motivation for establishing Muma Case Review was to provide a venue for publishing a series of cases developed by participants in the Doctor of Business Administration program of the Muma College of Business at the University of South Florida. While the many cases written and under development almost certainly could have been published in a variety of outlets, the program’s Academic Director—Grandon Gill—felt strongly about keeping the cases together, since they represented an important product of student research. Moreover, he wanted to make the cases freely available to other educators. Building on his relationship with the Informing Science Institute—whose policy had always been free open access to all its publications—he and Moez Limayem, the Dean, decided that creating a new outlet would be the best solution. Since he had also recently published a book on case writing, research and facilitation with the Informing Science Press (Gill, 2011, Informing with the Case Method), he also started thinking in broader terms: positioning the new outlet as portal for educators who desired to learn about case writing and facilitation, as well as for experienced case writers wanting to see their cases published.

Mission

MCR was launched in 2016. Its mission, as described on the MCR website, was to provide an open access publishing outlet for high quality discussion cases in business. A description taken from the MCR web site is included as Exhibit 2.

Submitting to MCR

MCR had policies that were at variance with those of standard academic research journals in many ways. For example, most journals preferred initial submissions to be in a double-spaced format that looked nothing like that of a final publication. Final formatting, if done by the author, did not take place until the very end of the process. MCR, on the other hand, required that all submissions be formatted according to the submission template.

Grandon Gill, the original designer of the MCR, explained the rationale for this as follows:

The biggest consideration is that it makes it easier for editors and reviewers—nearly all of whom use cases—to get a sense of what the case would look like if they used it in their classroom. It also streamlines the publication process when the case is accepted. Additionally, adhering to the template tends to force authors to present the case in an organizational that is going to be familiar to potential adopters of the case and to students using the case. Finally, authors who submit a case without using the template have not discovered the template or, at least, have not read it carefully. Sending a submission back unreviewed with the requirement that the template be used should correct that situation.

The template that was developed for MCR was built around the time-tested format used at Harvard Business School. The structure was relatively simple:

Page 1: The decision facing the case protagonist is summarized.

Body: A series of sections containing the narrative content of the case.

Optional Sections: A series of optional sections (Biographies, Acknowledgements and References) may be included.

Exhibits: Most tables, charts, graphics and source documents are included in this section, with exceptions being described later. Each exhibit must be referenced in the body of the case.

The decision to place exhibits at the end of the case was motivated by three factors. First, the structure was familiar to most case method students and facilitators. Second, it aided the review process by making the actual length of the cases more transparent. Finally, it made the preliminary formatting of cases—done by authors—much simpler.

Review Process

MCR also had a non-standard review process. In the academic world where Bailey typically published, the generally accepted approach to reviewing publications was a double-blind peer review. That meant that the reviewers did not know the identity of a submission’s authors, while the authors did not know the identity of the reviewers. Double-blind review reduced the likelihood that personal feelings or perceived risk of retaliation could impact the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript. For that reason, deans and promotion-and-tenure committees tended to heavily favor publications that had been vetted in this manner.

Gill felt that the double-blind approach—despite its widespread acceptance—had a number of shortcomings that were particularly troubling when it came to writing discussion cases. First, unlike conventional theory-based research, discussion cases tended to have a short shelf life. Allowing reviewers and authors to communicate directly with each can streamline the process. Second, discussion cases normally required release from the organization being profiled as part of the publication process. An example of a typical release document is presented in Exhibit 3. To accommodate this, reviewers and authors may need to negotiate changes subject to a 3rd party. Finally, writing discussion cases was much less likely to be taught in doctoral programs than other forms of research writing. For this reason, Gill expected that reviewers would need to be substantially more involved in rewriting submissions than would be usual—or even permissible—in a double-blind process. In fact, he had incorporated mentorship tracks into the review process whereby, with mutual agreement of all parties, a reviewer might become a co-author if his or her contribution merited it. He actually hoped that such arrangements would become commonplace where cases were submitted from non-English speaking countries.

Bailey felt a bit uncomfortable with this unusual process, but could see the logic behind it. It led to a question in her mind, however. How should she react if she made a submission to MCR and the editor suggested a review track that involved adding a co-author?

Publication

Another unusual aspect of MCR was its publication system. As an open access, online outlet, all cases would be published online as soon as they were accepted and formatted. Initially, there were no plans to publish regular annual print volumes, although it was expected that edited case collections would be printed from time-to-time, as circumstances warranted.

Bailey wondered if the emphasis on online publication might impact the perceived academic value of a MCR case. On the other hand, from a course design standpoint, she had to admit that case studies tended to be most useful when you could freely choose the ones you wanted. So the policy did make some practical sense.

Writing a MCR Case

Having never written a case study before, Bailey wondered how to get started. Of particular concern were the organization of the case and the writing style. She also wondered whether she would need to create a teaching note. She found some guidance in the MCR formatting template.

Organizing the Case

Although MCR did not require a specific organization, inexperienced case writers were encouraged to follow a general pattern in the body of the case along the lines of:

General Context Sections: A series of sections giving broad context for the case. These sections might describe relevant industries, technologies, regulations, processes and other areas with relevance well beyond the specifics of the case.

Specific Context Sections: A series of sections that provide context directly relevant to the case itself. Typical examples of such sections describe the company, the business unit, the background of the individual and so forth. These sections normally move from more general to more specific (e.g., organization sections would precede the business unit sections).

Decision-specific Sections: One or more sections detailing the specific decision to be made and choices available.

Summary Section: A final section, paralleling the Page 1 presentation, providing a more detailed look at the decision or plan to be developed and any constraints involved.

This pattern tended to be the one most familiar to students in case discussion courses, making it easier for them to prepare for a discussion. Other formats, such as an extended interview, would also be considered for publication if they happened to be a better fit with the content. An example of how the formatting template “case study” maps to this structure is presented in Exhibit 4.

Writing Style

Of particular interest to Bailey were the comments on writing style. Writing a case study was very different from writing a research paper. The biggest difference proceeded from the nature of the intended audience. Whereas a research article in her field was nearly always written with the expectation that the reader would be another researcher, the client for MCR cases was typically a student. Moreover, the student might be an undergraduate, a graduate student, or even an executive. A very different style was needed to engage this diverse group of readers.

Particularly different from research writing were the matters of perspective and choice of tense.

Perspective

Researchers normally write from an outsider’s (i.e., objective) point of view, even when using the first person or first person plural. Discussion cases, in contrast, focus on decisions being made by individual protagonists. From a practical standpoint, this meant writing from the case protagonist’s perspective whenever doing so was not awkward. Knowing this helped Bailey understand why Grandon Gill, the author of the formatting template, kept introducing her name throughout what should have been a simple set of instructions emphasizing fonts, margins and styles.

Choice of Tense

Research articles nearly always described something that happened in the past (e.g., an experiment) or some type of theory or conceptual scheme that is expected to endure into the future. As a consequence, the choice between past, present and future tense tended to be straightforward. In writing a case, this clarity tends to become muddled. Often the case writer was observing a decision—the central theme of the particular case—as it was happening. As a consequence, there was a natural tendency to write in the present tense.

The problem with this choice is that by the time the case is used in the classroom, the key decisions have often been made. Indeed, even the competitive situation may have changed. At that point, the case either looks dated or becomes factually wrong. That can become a distraction to the reader.

For the sake of consistency, the past tense is generally the safest approach unless the author is attempting to convey an enduring truth—such as the preceding paragraph. Moreover, Bailey noticed that whenever her perspective was taken in the formatting template case, the past tense was always used. Why? Because however enduring a truth or condition might be, the protagonist’s consideration of it took place prior to the time of reading. Not infrequently, this proves awkward for the case writer who happens to be watching a decision unfold. While a protagonist reads a case prior to approving it, he or she is prone to wonder: Why are you talking about me as if I’m no longer around? Sometimes this can be clarified by adding words to the effect of: “at the time of the case”.

At the time of the case, all MCR submissions had been written in the past tense whenever the protagonist’s point of view was taken. The MCR editors allowed for possibility that present or future tense cases might be published at some future date, should a compelling rationale for that style arise.

Teaching Note

Unlike many outlets for discussion cases, MCR did not require a formal teaching note accompany each discussion case submission. The rationale behind this was the expectation that many cases would be revised substantially during the review process. Moreover, it was critical that such teaching notes be properly secured. Should a teaching note on a particular case become widely available on the Internet, it could undermine the discussions of all the faculty members adopting the case for their own use.

Rather than being static formal documents, MCR maintained its teaching notes as wiki-pages within an open source course management system. Bailey had already followed the instructions on the MCR website to contact Grandon Gill, the editor-in-chief, for an account on that system. After verifying that she was a faculty member, he had then emailed her with an account ID and temporary password. In the accompanying email, Gill had stated:

We view teaching notes as living documents. Once a case has been accepted, we expect the authors of the case to put their preliminary ideas about how best to teach the case into the wiki. Then, each time they use the case, they are encouraged to update it with their new experiences. More importantly, we hope that other faculty members using the case will also update the wiki based upon their own experiences, as well as contacting the authors for information when appropriate. In this manner, we hope to build a community around each case.

“This is different,” Bailey thought to herself. But, in a peculiar way it made sense. It also meant that if others started using her case and had comments, she would learn about it. She wondered if this might actually serve as evidence of the value of the case, should she bring it to the attention of her chair.

Formatting a MCR Case

At first, the requirement to organize and format a MCR submission according to the template seemed daunting to Bailey. As long as the author had a reasonably up-to-date version of Microsoft Word, however, the process was relatively straightforward. If writing the case from scratch, one could simply rename the template document to the name of the case, then type over the existing content. If the case was already written in another format, the “Paste Text” could be used to move the text into a renamed template document, after which appropriate styles could be applied to the section headings. Since all complex formatting and graphic content ended up as Exhibits, these could be handled separately.

Basic Formatting

The basic formatting styles were Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, Heading 4, Exhibit and Normal. Heading 1 was used for the title of the case only. Heading 2 was used to identify the start of a section; Heading 3 was used for sub-headings; Heading 4 for sub-sub headings. Each exhibit began on a new page, using the Exhibit style. Normal was used for body text. Authors lacking access to MS-Word could approximate these in their formatting.

References

References should be made as in-text citations (Author[s], Year) and references should be placed at the end of the document body before the acknowledgements, biographies and exhibits. APA format should be used.

Footnotes

Footnotes and endnotes should not be used.

Page 1 Layout

To provide uniform look and feel, the first page of each case was formatted in the same manner. The elements of the Page 1 layout are illustrated in Exhibit 5.

Although tag line for the case and keywords was supplied when the case was submitted for indexing purposes, the first page of a MCR was not an abstract. Written in a narrative form, it laid out the decision-maker’s objectives. Typically, the objective would involve making a decision or coming up with a plan. Occasionally, the objective might vary—such as trying to make sense of a confusing or paradoxical situation. Such variations were generally best attempted by experienced case writers. Whatever the objective, it needed to be stated on the first page in the space provided. The first top-level heading then began on the second page of the case.

Optional Sections

After the summary section, three additional sections could optionally be included:

Authors: A section with photos and brief biographies of the case authors. Authors preferring not to supply that information with their initial submission could omit it.

Acknowledgements: A brief section acknowledging grants and reviewer contributions.

References: A section listing references in the case. This section was required only if the document had a large number of references. In most discussion cases, few academic references were necessary and they could be specified as they were made, as done in the formatting template case. When a reference section was included, it needed to conform to the APA standard.

Exhibits

As a general rule, non-text and text with special layout (such as tables) were placed in the exhibit section, at the end of the case. While this requirement sometimes forced the reader to flip back-and-forth between text and exhibits while studying the case, it dramatically reduced the challenge of formatting the case as a whole, since all complex formatting was in one place and did not need to be moved around for purposes of pagination as the case was edited. This style was also the one that was most familiar to those used to HBS cases.

On some occasions, figures and tables were allowed to be placed in the body of the case itself. The circumstances where this was considered appropriate are presented in Table 1, along with formatting directions. It was always acceptable to use exhibits instead of embedded tables/figures, however.

Table 1: Embedding Figures and Tables within the body of a case
Type	When Appropriate to Embed	Formatting Directions
Table	When material being described can be more compactly presented in table form, AND When the material has been prepared by the case writer and does not need to be sourced, AND When the material is better considered while the case narrative is being read, rather than being studied later.	Tables should be labeled numerically Table caption should appear on top row, with left right and top borders removed Column headers should be bold, white and on a 50% shaded background Font size may be reduced down to 10 points Should never break over a page
Figure	When the material does not require careful study (such as picture or graphic such as shown in Figure 1), AND When the material has been prepared by the case writer and does not need to be sourced, AND When the figure clarifies what is described in the text.	Figures should be labeled numerically Figures should be embedded in a two row, one column table The caption should be placed in the second row, with left right and bottom borders removed Captions should be as descriptive as possible, even if requiring more than one line.

Exhibits were sequentially numbered and each exhibit started on its own page. There were no special formatting requirements for the material in exhibits. Because such material often came from the case site, it frequently varied in font, structure and layout. Trying to make it uniform could actually reduce the authenticity of the case. Normally, it made sense to identify the source of an exhibit. This could be done by placing:

Source: whatever makes sense…

under the exhibit.

Generally speaking, static image files (e.g., .jpg, .gif, .png) were the best choice for complex graphics used in the exhibits. Using drawings—such as might be pasted in from PowerPoint—often caused problems when resizing. Images from other Microsoft products, such as PowerPoint and Excel, could be transformed into image files by right clicking them and using “Save As Picture” or “Save As” (earlier versions). When doing this, it also made sense to retain the original file, since the needs of publication—particularly in book form—sometimes made it advantageous to rebuild some images.

The Decision

Upon completing her investigation of the case method in general, and MCR in particular, Bailey knew that the time had come to make a decision. She had met with a number of companies that had been receptive to participating in a case. If she did not start the process soon, however, their attention would doubtless move to other projects.

With respect to the broad question of whether or not to develop a discussion case, she had met with her department chair. He had confirmed what she had thought—that a discussion case would not be treated the same as a published research article for the purposes of promotion and tenure. On the other hand, the chair had pointed out that the university had recently identified bringing its research into the classroom as a priority. Writing a case and then discussing it in class was a perfect fit with this objective. The chair had also noted that the department was eager to develop closer relationships with the local practice community. Working with a company to develop a discussion case would also serve that purpose.

Assuming that she decided to develop a discussion case, the next question was that of publication outlet. In particular, she wondered if MCR was suitable. As a relatively new repository, it did not have the reputation of other general discussion case outlets with a longer track record, such as HBS Publishing, the Ivey School, the North American Case Research Association (NACRA) and the Case Centre (formerly ECCH), all of which distributed their cases through HBS Publishing, which had the widest distribution of cases in the world, by a large margin. In practical terms, this also meant that:

Accessing these cases required a personal or library subscription, and there was normally a fee for using them in the classroom.

Access to publication was often limited and time consuming. HBS cases, for example, normally needed at least one Harvard-affiliated author. Other outlets were organized around a more traditional review/revise/accept model that could be very time consuming. MCR, in contrast, was focused on achieving fast turnaround—even if that meant that perfection was not achieved—and was built around the belief than mentoring of authors was likely to be an important part of most submissions.

As a new author of discussion cases, the last of these particularly intrigued Bailey. But would departing from traditional peer review further undermine the credibility of its publications?

Even if she decided that she would develop a discussion case that was targeted at MCR, there were decisions that needed to be made. Among these:

Should she be writing using the template, or write the case then apply the template before submitting it? Bailey was used to writing drafts with double-spaced lines and minimal formatting. The MCR guidelines, however, specified that the template needed to be used for submissions. She wondered if it would adversely impact her writing style if she was simultaneously worried about layout and content.

At what point in case development should the submission take place? Given that MCR claimed to be focused on mentoring, it might make sense to submit a case before obtaining final release from the site. She wondered how hard it would be convince the case protagonist to allow MCR editors and reviewers to look at the case prior to release.

What would she do if the editors suggested some non-conventional review relationship, such as co-authorship? Although MCR was clear in stating that authors were given control over how their work proceeded through review, it also indicated that a number of options might be proposed. Would she even consider participating in such options? And then there was an expectation that MCR communicated: that published MCR authors would participate in mentoring new authors. Did she want to make such a commitment, even if it was unstated?

One aspect of the decision had already become clear to her: if she had questions, the MCR Editor-in-Chief was ready and eager to answer them. The problem was coming up with the right questions.

References

Author-list. (Year). Article title in lower case, followed by journal and page number. Journal title in italics, including Vol(Number). #-##.

Author-list. (Year). Book title in lower case and italicized. City: Publisher name.

Author-list. (Year). Chapter title in lower case followed by book reference and chapter pages. In editor-list (Eds.)(Year). Book title in lower case and italicized. City: Publisher name. #-##.

Author-list. (Year). Web site title in italics. Retrieved dd/mm/yy from http://website-url

Acknowledgements

This case study is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1043919, and a substantially similar version is used by the Journal of IT Education: Discussion Cases, published by the Informing Science Institute.

Biography

Grandon Gill is a Professor in the Information Systems and Decision Sciences department at the University of South Florida. He holds a doctorate in Management Information Systems from Harvard Business School, where he also received his M.B.A. His principal research areas are the impacts of complexity on decision-making, the diffusion of academic research findings and applying the case method to STEM education. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of IT Education: Discussion Cases and of the Muma Business Review.

Exhibit 1: Fictionalized HBS Case Discussion

Example: The Case Method at HBS

Imagine yourself sitting in a horse-shoe shaped amphitheater-style classroom with about 80 other students. It is about two minutes before the hour when class is scheduled to start. Friends and not-so-friends are scurrying to their seats, perhaps pressed for time as a consequence of the long lines that sometime form between classes for the Aldrich Hall restrooms.

The instructor, a distinguished looking woman in her mid-40s, is already at the front of the classroom poring over an array of papers laid out across the desk. There is no podium as you might see in a typical classroom. There is, however, a custom designed white board with many layers that can be moved up and down to allow a huge area to be exposed.

As you look down at your case, a 25 page single-spaced document that consists of about 10 pages of single-spaced text followed by 15 pages of charts, tables and clippings (from news sources, annual reports and the web), your palms begin to sweat. There were so many facts in the case that half of the text was highlighted by you as you prepared it in the previous evening. Unfortunately, this is too much of a good thing. There is so much highlighting that it no longer serves the useful purpose of helping you to identify relevant facts should you be called upon to do so. You then turn to the one and a half page outline developed by a member of your study group: Jing Lee, chosen because he had done his undergraduate degree at the University of New South Wales. You started wishing that it had been you—not he—that had created the outline. When you discussed the case last night, your group had collectively identified three options that the company, a bauxite mining and processing operation in Australia called AluminAux Ltd., could pursue in order to move forward. Jing had chosen the more conservative option, which was less risky since it did not require a major investment. Your own preference, on the other hand, involved establishing a new joint venture with a Nigerian company in order to gain a distribution foothold in Africa—despite the obvious risks of doing business on that continent. Unfortunately, Jing’s notes offered little concrete support for your position; during the group meeting you’d scribbled some comments in the margin, but now you wonder how effectively you could open with them. You look forward to the afternoon’s case, involving a financial services VP who finds himself questioning whether a particular investment vehicle is ethical. For that case, you were the one who had prepared the outline. You are confident that you have that one nailed!

The class goes silent and your pulse races. The professor scans the room. Her gaze fixes on you for a moment, but then her eyes move upwards, towards the top, most distant row of students (affectionately referred to as the skydeck).

Mary, what would you advise the CEO of AluminAux to do?

Immediately, you feel a sense of release. Although some professors prepared a set of study questions for each case, this instructor does not. Thus, you never knew what you will have to respond to when she cold calls you.

You feel considerable sympathy for Mary, who has been quiet most of the semester, as she opens. From the tremor in her voice, it is clear that she is very nervous. Nevertheless, her presentation is well organized—clearly indicating her preference for the same African option that you chose. Her country analysis, however, seems to drag on. The professor seems to think so too, first giving Mary a quizzical look and then, finally, asking:

I hate to interrupt, but is this taking us anywhere?

You turn back towards Mary and see the tension in her face. Hastily, she completes the analysis in a few seconds then states her conclusions in rushed fashion. As soon as it is clear she is about to end, ten hands go up throughout the classroom.

Yours is not one of them. This particular course, focusing on international business, has generated a lot of participation—perhaps because your section is over 25% international in its makeup. While all your classes treat participation as 50% of the student’s grade, in some classes it is relatively easy to contribute. In this class, it is definitely not. Thus, you only raise your hand when you have something specific you really want to say.

As a result, you have mixed feelings about Mary’s opening. With competition for air time being so intense, it would have been nice if the opener had taken a position you could disagree with—your contributions to the discussion have a lot more impact when you disagree with the consensus than when you agree. On the other hand, Mary has had a tough time motivating herself to participate throughout the semester, since she readily admits that public speaking and confrontation are not her forte. Thus, you are glad that you are not in the position of being forced to try to refute her points.

So you wait. A few of your classmates make inconsequential comments of agreement and your attention starts to wander. Then the instructor calls upon Jerry…

Jerry, with a Yale undergraduate degree and five years of experience working at a New York investment bank prior to enrolling at HBS, is one of the section’s stars in participation. Aggressive to the point of arrogance, he seems to take particular delight in demolishing the arguments of others, even those who are weaker participants. Within the section he is greatly admired, though not particularly well liked.

And so the process of taking apart everything that Mary concluded in her opening begins. He questions her assumptions about the potential profitability of the Nigerian joint venture. He argues that she vastly underestimated the cash flows that could be derived from the more conservative strategy. Most importantly, he asserts that any Nigerian venture must be negotiated with public sector involvement—that involvement in the private sector is simply too risky.

Instantly, your hand shoots up. You look directly at the professor with a transparent, and somewhat theatrical, look of desperation on your face. She catches your eye and gives an almost imperceptible nod. You relax—you will be the next student calls because she knows exactly what you are going to say. You quickly flip your case to the proper page and a few seconds later she points to you. You begin:

I am not sure that Jerry has taken into account Exhibit 4. If he had read the text closely, he would have noticed the following…

You begin to read a block of text that describes the potential Nigerian partner’s role as their Deputy Minister of Finance for nearly a decade and his close relationships with the existing Prime Minister, who came from the same region of the country as he did. You sum your comment, which takes less than a minute in total, with the following:

Although it does not explicitly state this in the case, I think this evidence strongly indicates that the proposed venture is being designed and sanctioned by the current government, and that its risk is therefore acceptable.

You hear some giggles from around the classroom. You shoot and you score, you think to yourself. Jerry immediately raises his hand to rebut you, but is thwarted by the professor who says:

Given the support of the Nigerian government, what other risks do we need to worry about in analyzing the joint venture?

Nadia raises her hand and begins to discuss the question. Her presentation is not well organized, however, and seems to be an effort to point out all of the points she wanted to make, regardless of relevance. The professor recognizes this first, and begins to signal the fact by the manner in which she adds to the evolving outline on the classroom’s boards. As the student makes each point, the professor scurries over to a different place in the board, using an exaggerated style of walking. Then she raises her hand to signal the student to pause, while she lowers one of the boards already filled and adds a comment to table that already has a similar one. At this point, Nadia recognizes the non-verbal message the instructor is communicating and quickly completes her contribution.

The discussion continues to flow around the potential risks of the joint venture. With about 20 minutes to go, the professor calls on Kassim—the section’s only Nigerian student. His hand has been up and down for most of the discussion; thus, the choice to delay calling on him was probably a conscious choice on the professor’s part, although you can never really know.

Kassim, in a deep voice accented by his Oxford education, begins to discuss the current situation political in Nigeria. Specifically, he points out that the recent discovery of a large oil field, sitting on the border of Nigeria and two of its neighbors, has produced severe regional tensions. Indeed, there is some fear that it may escalate into war. He concludes by saying:

Thus, it would be a mistake in the current situation to believe that Nigeria would be a good choice as your gateway to Africa. While I believe that AluminAux can successfully enter the African markets, now would not be the time for to attempt that with a Nigerian partner.

He has, of course, completely demolished your point. Knowing that, were you making this decision you would have certainly opted for the safer option. Nevertheless, Kassim’s statement does not disturb you. The fact was not in the case, nor was it known at the time of the case. Reality may undermine your conclusions, but the only reality that matters is that which appears in the case.

Having scarcely spent 3 minutes speaking for the first hour of the class, the professor now takes control. Interestingly, her summation centers around Kassim’s point. Her particular perspective is that we, as managers, need to be particularly attuned to the possibility that events can radically change the competitive landscape. Thus, we need to consider the completely unexpected in assessing possible outcomes, and not become fixated on what our projections tell us.

As she wraps up, it becomes clear that she is not planning to tell us what decision the company actually made. Jerry raises his hand and asks. She replies:

The company chose a variation of the less risky option presented in the case.

Jerry smiles knowingly at you, acting vindicated. The professor continues:

Unfortunately, the rapid increase in the value of the Australian Dollar against the Euro, the Dollar and the Yuan that occurred last year meant that their margins were squeezed below break-even and, as a result, the company is now in the Australian equivalent of Chapter 11.

You smile back at Jerry.

Source: Gill, T.G. (2011) Informing with the Case Method: A Guide to Case Method Research, Writing and Facilitation. Santa Rosa, CA: Informing Science Press, pp. 6-10.

Exhibit 2: MCR Description

Mission

The Muma Case Review (MCR) is a peer reviewed journal whose mission is to publish high quality peer reviewed open access discussion cases and technical notes.

Publishing

The MCR publishes one volume each year. Each case and technical note published receives its own number within the volume, based on the order of publication. Cases are published electronically upon acceptance.

Because faculty members generally select discussion cases individually, for a specific purpose within their curriculum, the MCR does not publish a printed volume. In conjunction with the Muma Business Press, however, it may publish printed collections of case studies from time-to-time.

Support

The operations and publications of the MCR are supported by the Muma College of Business at the University of South Florida. The journal’s peer review system is maintained by the Informing Science Institute.

To contact the editorial staff, please use the journal’s Contact Us page.

Participation

The journal encourages participation from authors and reviewers from around the globe. Additional information on contributing cases as an author can be found on the Authors page. Additional information on participating as a reviewer can be found on the Reviewers page.

Source: MCR web site

Exhibit 3: Example Case Release Document

Case Study Release Agreement

Between //Author// and //Company//

//Author//, //Title, Institution//, and //Contact//, acting as authorized representative for //Company// in //his/her// capacity as //Position//, having cooperated in the development of the attached case, entitled //Case name//, agree to the following:

1)	//Company// releases the case to //Author//, giving him and his employer the specific rights to use the case for teaching purposes, to make the case available to other universities and institutions for teaching purposes, and to include the case in academic or professional publications.

2)	Such release of the case by //Company// is specifically not to be construed as an authorization to disclose information acquired in the case-writing process which was not contained in the case itself, and any existing non-disclosure agreements remain in force.

3)	//Author//, as the copyright holder, grants //Company// the right to make unlimited copies of the case for its own purposes.

4)	//Author// agrees not to modify the attached case, except for the express purpose of eliminating typographical errors or grammatical inconsistencies, without permission from //Company//.

5)	//Company// agrees to allow //Author// to transfer this copyright to a publisher provided the remaining terms of the agreement remain in force.

6)	All parties involved agree to hold each other harmless in the event that release of the case leads to unanticipated consequential damages.

In the event that any legal disputes should arise from this agreement, both sides agree to attempt to resolve such problems though amicable discussions or, that failing, through binding arbitration.

Agreed to by:

__________________________________ Date: ________________

//Author//

__________________________________ Date: ________________

//Contact//

Source: Developed by case writer

Exhibit 4: Deconstructing the Formatting Template “Case”

Source: Developed by case writer.

Exhibit 5: Page 1 Diagram

Source: Developed by case writer.

Copyright © 2018, Your name. This case was prepared for the purpose of class discussion, and not to illustrate the effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Names and some information have been disguised. This case is published under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. Permission is granted to copy and distribute this case for non-commercial purposes, in both printed and electronic formats.