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 4,500 cases in their current collection, Ivey Publishing is now the is the second largest producer and distributor of business case studied 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 developed countries around the world. Here’s what people in these countries are saying about our cases:
I have used Ivey Cases for different courses and topics, as they are designed for managerial thought process development through quantitative applications as well as logical reasoning. The wide range of topics, selected from different contexts, help the learning groups to smoothly develop the feel of global organizational problem-solving situations. I prefer to use Ivey cases for its 'focused linkages with the curriculum related topics.' The cases have a clear tone and easy to understand language. I experienced that students often found the supporting information with the cases quite relevant, allowing it to be, used effectively to enrich the quality of discussions. It was initially challenging for me to successfully introduce the case-method to the groups, who were being exposed to this pedagogical tool for the first-time. But the wide-variety of available Ivey cases and supporting literature helped me to make it happen with encouraging results. I have been using it for the last two academic sessions in Tanzanian executive level masters classes and found the students easily adopting it without any challenges. I have tried it in different modes of case-based learning like class-room discussion, student-presentation and case-assignments and found it to be equally effective. I am confident that in the future more and more students in this part of the world will benefit from the knowledge-rich collection of Ivey.—Shiv K. Tripathi Ph.D. Professor, School of Business Mzumbe University, Tanzania
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 39 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 39 countries are offered free access to Ivey Publishing cases and International 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 39 countries must register with Ivey Publishing. 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.