The Case for Cases
Business cases are one of the most powerful building blocks of management education and are widely used in the developed world. In fact, the world’s top 35-MBA schools deliver one third of their content with cases. Cases are widely recognized as an effective complement to traditional lecture-based teaching across a range of disciplines. Academic studies in both business and non-business environments demonstrate the benefits of using case teaching, illustrating how the method helps to develop a cognitive capacity for critical thinking and problem solving through active learning with real world scenarios.
The strength of the case method rests in its ability to mimic the dynamic environment of the real world. Traditional educational texts represent reality in a logical and coherent manner that may be inconsistent with fluid, uncertain and ambiguous realities. In contrast, the real-life nature of cases bring abstract concepts to life by linking them with concrete and immediate issues which decision makers face.
Ivey cases
Ivey Publishing is a leader in providing business case studies. With over 7,000 cases in their current collection, Ivey Publishing is the second largest producer and distributor of business cases in the world. It adds more than 350 classroom-tested case studies each year. Virtually all Ivey cases have teaching notes. Clear, concise, and current, Ivey cases are lauded by the academic community as meeting the rigorous demands of management education by responding to the ever changing needs of business and society.
Through the 39 Country Initiative, Ivey has taken a definitive step by making cases more accessible in the least economically developed countries around the world. Here’s what people in these countries are saying about Ivey cases:
Shiv K. Tripathi
Ph.D. Professor, School of Business Mzumbe University, TanzaniaI have used Ivey cases for different courses and topics, as they are designed to develop managerial thinking through quantitative applications and logical reasoning. The range of topics, selected from different contexts, helps learners gently develop intuition for solving global organizational problems. I prefer to use Ivey cases for their “focused connections to curriculum topics”. The cases have a clear tone and easy-to-understand language. I've found that students often find the supporting materials and references highly relevant, thus enriching the quality of the discussions. Initially, I found it difficult to integrate the case method with groups of students who were discovering this pedagogical tool for the first time. But the wide variety of Ivey cases available and the corresponding documentation helped me to do so with encouraging results. I've used it over the last two academic terms in Tanzanian executive-level masters classes and found that the students adopted it easily, without any problems. I've tried it in different case-based learning modes, such as class discussion, student presentation and practical work, and found it equally effective. I'm convinced that in the future, more and more students in this part of the world will benefit from Ivey's knowledge-rich collection.
Access to Cases
Despite a desire to use case teaching within the academic community, the method has not yet been widely utilized within the world's 46 lowest income countries. The 39 Country Initiative works to increase the use of cases in these countries. As described above, the evidence suggests that the use of cases can increase cognitive skills in students. There is further evidence linking improved cognitive skills to economic growth.
Faculty members in the 46 countries are offered free access to Ivey Publishing cases, exercises and technical notes, plus Ivey Business Journal articles for use in their respective courses. Ivey Publishing's comprehensive collection consist of cases studies covering a wide rage of learning objectives and problems. Cases are available for download 24/7 through the online catalogue. To gain access to this resource, faculty members in the 46 countries must register with Ivey Publishing. There is no cost to do so.
Click here to view the Ivey Publishing registration page.
Contact us if you have questions or require assistance in gaining access to Ivey cases through the 39 Country Initiative.