Cases are included in many courses in Administrative Studies to
give students an appreciation of the hard realities of business and
the constraints involved in decision making. By exposure to a
variety of situations and diverse problems, the student can
experience, to some degree, the challenges and dilemmas of the
decision maker. Cases are usually based on real situations. For
reasons of privacy and confidentiality, the persons, the
companies, and the locations involved are typically disguised.
When assigning case analyses, instructors expect that students
will:
• study the information provided in each case,
• attempt to diagnose the nature of the problem or
problems involved,
• search for alternative ways in which the problems can be
resolved,
• recommend and justify the course of action that is most
likely to be effective. The justification should rely, to a
large extent, on theoretical principles.
Sometimes students feel disappointed because the cases
sometimes do not appear to be “dramatic.” However, because
the cases do represent the realities of organizations, they are
often likely to be somewhat mundane, at least to the outside
observer. Most of the incidents are based on events that were
actually faced by managers and their subordinates on a day-today basis. Very often, cases do not contain all the information
that the student would like to have. This is often done
intentionally, or at least knowingly, by the case writer. In real
life, a manager must frequently make decisions on the basis of
limited information.
Sometimes students exert much energy searching for the
“correct answer” or the “one best solution” without realizing
that, in case studies, the stress is not on the “right” or “wrong”
answer. Instead, the emphasis is on the student’s ability to take
into account all the variables that might have a bearing on the
situation and then find an answer that is feasible – and the best
among a limited number of...