View from the top – Deans discuss cases

Managing through uncertainty

The decade since The Case Centre last canvassed the views of deans has proved challenging on many fronts. Schools have faced a multitude of critical issues including sustainability, equity, diversity, inclusion, and relentless technological change, all emerging from an ever more complex, interlinked and fragile world, and an ever faster-moving, global, business environment. The unprecedented, and largely unforeseen, global pandemic left its own marks on how learning is delivered and evaluated. These years have transformed business education, also witnessing a changing geographical balance, significance and diversity of schools across the globe. Deans themselves are a more diverse group than a decade ago. 

Throughout, cases have continued to be written and used. Responding to the urgency of the pandemic, leadership and educators at schools worldwide showed astonishing creativity, flexibility and dedication to their students, embracing remote and even more challenging hybrid class formats to make cases and the discussion work. The temptation to simply record a lecture, instead of working out how to engage a class online, was widely resisted. From the top down, schools invested and faculty committed to keep using cases, whether as the continued mainstay of programmes, or as part of a varied teaching mix. 

Opening a window

So why stick with cases? At Columbia Business School, Costis Maglaras comments: “The case method of teaching is, and will continue to be, a pillar of business education. It serves as a powerful vehicle to immerse students into ambiguous and complex settings and then use the ensuing discussion as a mechanism to build intuition about business problems, glean frameworks for thinking about them, and ultimately learn how disparate ideas and concepts can often be leveraged towards their solution.”

Cases have held their value through recent change and uncertainty: “Cases are an extraordinary distillation of our complex world”, says Catherine Duggan at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB). “They are unmatched in their ability to challenge students to grapple with new situations and approach problems holistically. While there is often a temptation to focus on narrow questions and theoretical insights, ideally a business school classroom should serve as a window onto the world. Cases allow us to look through that window, understand, share and see things in new ways.”

At Harvard Business School (HBS), Srikant Datar elaborates: “Participant centred learning - the case method in particular - remains successful because it enables students to learn to interpret and analyse information, consider alternatives, decide on a plan of action, and persuade others about their point of view. Students learn how to learn: to practice drilling down to the root cause of issues, asking questions, and listening to others’ viewpoints. It educates for judgment.” All those we spoke to agreed that the ability to form judgement, to listen and be heard, to persuade and to be persuadable, remain critical requirements for tomorrow’s executives: “At a moment when business leaders are being asked to help address society’s most pressing problems, the skills that are learned and practiced in a case class are more vital than ever,” adds Datar.

Change and evolution

The case method recently celebrated its centenary. While still informed and anchored by its original pedagogical vision, cases themselves, have constantly developed in form and content in response to the changing world. Those we spoke to acknowledged the importance of this continuing evolution, particularly today when participants interact so differently with information.

Ivey Business School has a long established commitment to case pedagogy. “We will remain focused on the development of leaders, with case-based and experiential learning at the core of our curriculum,” confirms Sharon Hodgson. “Our Case Teaching 2.0 initiative recognises that young people don’t consume information in the way they used to, so we need to continue to innovate and modernise our class approaches and the student experience. We want to make cases an ever more immersive experience, by advancing the use of visual, more accessible and participative technologies. We believe this can lead to an even higher level of learning, while staying true to the principles of case-based learning.”

Cases also remain at the heart of IESE Business School’s programmes: “The case method is the principal learning method  we use,” confirms Franz Heukamp. “Beyond the use of a case or a real situation, the method is based on the power of discussion to develop managerial capacities such as analysing business problems, balancing different perspectives, presenting viable solutions and deriving power from conviction. The strength of cases is that they are about real business problems, and these are in constant evolution - so the cases must continuously evolve too. Over the years, we have seen changes in content, protagonists and focus, and technology is now facilitating the growth of simulations and enhanced experiences, such as the metaverse, or the use of quantum computing technology, to enrich the class discussion.” 

But, for cases to evolve, so must their writers and instructors. “Faculty will need to be ever more open to students’ ideas,” suggests Sindhuja Menon at ICFAI Business School (IBS). “In fact, schools themselves will have to be more open to new pedagogical experiences, many, though not all of which, will come about through technology. As business models evolve, so must cases and the modes of delivery. Cases will still continue to push students to develop their critical thinking, but empathy, and emotional & cultural intelligence, are likely to be the key requirements for both students and professors to remain respectful of each other’s ideas.”

The pandemic precipitated new learning. On an operational level, several deans reported how the Zoom chat function is now routinely integrated into in-person classes to facilitate wider real-time sharing, and to encourage reticent students to participate - an enduring challenge for case discussion. “We learned so much from the experiences of the pandemic,” recalls Sharon Hodgson. “We stayed with case discussion throughout, and later looked at student outcomes, achieved with some necessary amended approaches to evaluation. Outcomes remained essentially as before. While our students had lost the campus aspect of their programme, they were still able to develop the critical judgement, thinking and persuasion skills that they will need.” 

UCT GSB took the opportunity of its empty campus to ready its teaching spaces to support new approaches to case discussions. Cameras at multiple angles brought online students more fully into classrooms, while experimentation revealed that the best hybrid experience brought together old technology in the form of blackboards (high contrast, no shine!) with new technologies including pressure sensitive boards that automatically transfer information onto Zoom. “Case discussions are fast-paced, tactile and dynamic,” explains Catherine Duggan. “We wanted to create spaces that could bring the case ‘action’ to students wherever they are without compromising the in-person experience.”

Trends and relevance

At IAE Business School, cases are widely used across all programmes. Carolina Dams observes new trends: “Cases continue to offer our students invaluable opportunities to work with real-world problems in a ‘safe’ environment. But we are seeing the mix change, with ‘live’ cases more frequently entering the executive, or executive MBA, curriculum, allowing the class to work together on actual problems faced by a participant,” she reports. “Students increasingly want to work on recent cases. In many industries the pace of change is so fast, that they also need relevance. Maximising these attributes can become something of a pedagogical trade-off for teachers when selecting cases and planning courses, but the engagement of students grows exponentially if a case is fresh, and especially if authored by the faculty member - which we encourage - topped off perhaps by the protagonist actually putting in a class appearance, in person or online.”

At the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Jean-François Manzoni echoes the premium impact of original cases. “Executives tend to pay even more attention to cases written by the programme tutor. It helps the class dynamics, being more interesting and bringing fresh insights. Original cases enhance the credibility of both instructor and institution,” he observes. “More generally, executives don't spend as much time reading a case as in the past; they are busy people and frequently still in demand away from their workplace on a programme. In class, attention spans can be shorter, which is where the development of multimedia and fresh interactive formats is useful.” IMD uses a varied mix of teaching methods, and experiential sessions, alongside cases, which Manzoni feels are useful for building a shared context for discussion, when participants have vastly different backgrounds. “The bottom line for authors is that quality matters, and the case had better be a good read! Instructors must also ensure that their participants are absolutely clear as to why they are being asked to read the case!” cautions Manzoni. 

Others acknowledged that engaging participants with today’s reputedly shorter attention spans can be a challenge, and whether or not as a result of this, the average length of cases has been getting progressively shorter - in some instances dramatically. Where a URL will suffice to locate relevant background information, appendix pages have also been shrinking. Ironically, this trend appears against a backdrop of people reading much more in general than previously. Information is almost permanently at our fingertips and we scroll it continuously. Some felt that pressure on instructors has increased because though class participants may not have read an actual case in detail, they may have surfed a lot of related available information, and potentially more than faculty themselves.

Catherine Duggan cautions against cases becoming too short or too simple: “It is true that students often initially prefer shorter and more straightforward cases, but good cases taught well can help them see opportunities, challenges and risks that others may not. Complex cases push students to navigate large quantities of information and intertwined issues while helping them to develop nuanced and analytical skills that will serve them throughout their careers.” Duggan encourages instructors to advocate for the value of immersive, complex and unpredictable case class experiences: “Students quickly find that the most interesting, relevant cases may not be the quickly ‘crackable’ ones, but those about complex challenges keeping real protagonists awake at night. When they have experienced good case discussions facilitated by well-prepared faculty they typically come to a better appreciation of the value of their own preparation and reflection.” 

Carolina Dams envisages authors more frequently producing more than one version of the case. “Just as there are A and B cases, or several versions configured for use in different subject areas, right from the start, there could be a long and a short version, with a teaching note reflecting their best uses.” Dams foresees such advantages in multimedia too: “These days, a video can feel a bit old fashioned, expensive to produce, and be too long,” she observes, imagining instead a kind of TikTok of case elements that could be available for preparation and class, all authored as part of the original case, to appeal to a new generation.

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Technology and AI

The creative use of emerging technologies was widely considered to be an enrichment of the classroom experience. Views of the impact of AI on case learning were more nuanced. At the Saïd Business School, Soumitra Dutta foresees AI facilitating a boost in case production: “It will be possible to produce new cases almost on demand - at the touch of a button - and certainly infinitely faster and at lower cost. We only need to look at what has happened with coding to see how fast this ‘technology-take-over’ can happen.” Such a vision raises concerns for schools that encourage the production of original research-based cases, especially those with their own publishing arms. Dutta remains optimistic: “AI could well disrupt the whole infrastructure around cases, case publication and distribution, but it could also be seen as a huge opportunity for reimagining the ‘system’ in terms of authentication, verification, and quality assurance.”

At HKU Business School, Hongbin Cai sees a mixed picture: “Humans do still outperform AI in critical skills such as problem identification and solving, which cases train for well. We innately think critically, empathise with others, and understand complex social dynamics, all skills enabling us to identify underlying issues, devise creative solutions, and communicate persuasively in ways that AI has yet to fully replicate.” Cai sees strengths of case learning in this emphasis on human judgment, creativity, and the interpersonal skills, which will be essential to nurture especially in the AI era. “AI still lacks the nuanced understanding and emotional intelligence required to navigate real-world problems as effectively as humans. Nevertheless, AI-driven tools have the useful potential to automate certain aspects of the case learning process such as analysing data for insights and facilitating collaboration among students and that will necessitate changes in the way cases are developed and taught,” he suggests. 

Franz Heukamp considers: “The case method may evolve with new formats and technologies, but case discussion will always be a crucial part of learning. This is more relevant than ever in the age of AI. Machines can make calculations and carry out mechanical activities, but they require effective prompts - the right questions - to get there. All leaders need to develop the ability to formulate good questions and the case method is still unbeatable in this regard. I am sure that information collection, data calculations or even the writing of a first draft of research can be accelerated with AI, but the teaching objectives, the managerial perspective and the overall vision of a company will continue to be a distinctive landmark of a good business case,” he suggests.

Sindhuja Menon focuses on potential opportunities: “Cases will certainly evolve based on technology, people and (global) business perspectives. From a technology perspective, future cases could harness the potential of AI for better learning and engagement of students. Operating together with virtual reality, students could act as case protagonists and experience the impact of their decision-making in real-time.” Meanwhile, Sharon Hodgson cites the example of ChatGPT, which will inevitably be widely used, including in education: “Used well, this could lead to a higher level of learning,” she suggests.  “However, the implications of it accessing school case collections pose more complex questions for schools - and the reality is that it will access them at some point.”

For Costis Maglaras: “AI is poised to be a formidable agent of change, disruption, but also opportunity. It will not replace human judgement (at least in many settings of relevance) and needs to be embraced as opposed to ignored or dismissed as just a ‘parallel trend’, for example.”  Soumitra Dutta identifies a different concern when considering AI: “It is really important not to limit reflections on the impact of AI to what we see it is today. The development of AI is now exponential and we can almost certainly not even imagine how it will look - in just a very few years. The best approach is to be bold and experiment with it for the future!” he encourages.

Content, skills and innovation

So, as schools grapple with new technologies and trends, it is important to always keep in mind their key purpose to grow the skills their participants will need. “We must keep in mind that we are not just preparing our students for new professional opportunities straight after their studies, but for future roles that don’t exist today, in companies still to be founded, and in technologies yet to be developed,” says Catherine Duggan. “A key thing we can aim to teach - to help equip our students for the years ahead - is how to manage and thrive in uncertainty. I have still never found a better method for doing this than through cases,” she adds.

Costis Maglaras proposes: “Students need to learn from cases that reflect the present and the future. To enable them to learn from innovation happening worldwide, and to use the discussion to study globalisation, they require cases that include businesses and business innovations that come from different parts of the globe. These must include cases that showcase the business challenges of today and of tomorrow; cases that incorporate and expose technologies as they are affecting the practice of business, and cases that represent and reflect the social norms of present society.”

Aspiring to prepare for their students’ future world is embedded into institutional strategy at many schools. “To ensure our research and teaching stays future-focused, we have identified three critical issues: evolution of work; global citizenship, competitiveness & innovation; and sustainability,“ reports Sharon Hodgson. “Cases embracing these themes have a fundamental role to play in this endeavour,” she comments. Hongbin Cai reports a similar direction: “In terms of content, cases must increasingly address topics such as sustainability, diversity, and digital transformation, as well as emerging markets and new business models. As the world becomes more interconnected, it is crucial to consider diverse cultures and perspectives in case studies. This will enable students to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities inherent in international business,” he observes.

For Sindhuja Menon, cases have a fundamental role to play in addressing future issues: “Cases which relate to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals could make a critical contribution to integrating sustainability into management education and the student experience globally,” she suggests. “Similarly, at a time of ever more ‘born global’ companies, whether in developed or emerging markets, cases that enable analysis from a global perspective will help equip students for the rapid internationalisation that is fast becoming the norm for all businesses. Future cases are also destined to present ever more diversity by having women, LGBTQ+, multiracial, or of different class or religion case protagonists, or entrepreneurs - such as ‘mompreneurs’. Although the glass ceiling very much still persists, organisations are increasingly pursuing an equal-opportunity-for-all strategy.”

Innovation is needed. HKU Business School has responded to the growing need for professionals capable of analysing and interpreting the exponentially growing volumes of data available to businesses. “We have developed the world’s first cloud-based platform for data analytics cases, which allows us to merge the traditional case format with data analytics labs,” reports Hongbin Cai. “Students can analyse large corporate data sets using environments such as Jupyter Notebook, RStudio and Orange Data Mining. The platform will help them develop essential analytics skills and prepare them for the data-driven decision-making processes they will encounter in their careers.”

Creating the powerful and responsible managers and leaders of tomorrow also requires building human skills and recruiters certainly look for this in new hires. Franz Heukamp reports how participants themselves are more often looking for help on programmes with “transversal abilities like communication, negotiation and people skills, and self-management.” 

“It’s not just what goes through your technical mind but what goes through your heart that will make you a better manager or leader,” says Carolina Dams. “We need to nurture both sides of our students’ brains to equip them for their futures. As humans, we are vulnerable and we are fallible, and cases with a protagonist who expresses not only how they solved a technical problem, but also how they went through the emotional and human process will help our students understand their own potential in the world we will need - all the better if that protagonist can appear in person or live online in class too.” 

Pedagogy and responsibility

Without exception, the deans we spoke to judge cases, even after a hundred years, to have enduring pedagogical strengths. If they continue to evolve, they are here to stay both as a prime method of instruction, and used together with other pedagogies. Most felt that it was part of their role to set institutional teaching expectations and to facilitate the resourcing necessary to realise those.  But, almost all stressed that autonomy should be afforded to faculty to select the precise pedagogy to meet their specific teaching objectives.

“The member of faculty is in charge of the learning process,” says Soumitra Dutta. “My job is not to dictate teaching approaches, but to hire the brightest and the best to teach and inspire our participants. It is appropriate for me to encourage and facilitate original research at the school, and we know that students like that originality in class. It is an individual faculty or departmental decision to choose the best teaching approach or case available to achieve learning for their class, whether they or someone else at another institution authored it.”

Jean-François Manzoni concurs: “While of course I care about the teaching approaches of our faculty and am involved in influencing institutional strategy, it is not for me to dictate class or course approaches or materials. By the same token, I am in a position to steer investment into specific pedagogies and encourage a vibrant discussion across the school on such matters.”

For schools with a primary case method ethos, leaders see it is part of their role to ensure original case production is facilitated and encouraged. “We see our case based method of learning as a strategic and competitive advantage,” says Sindhuja Menon. “Schools worldwide now use case materials from our own Case Research Centre.” Sharon Hodgson identifies the need to get a view of what is being taught across the institution: “School leadership does not, and cannot, know exactly the teaching choices of every faculty member, and those choices remain their decisions. But increasingly we are tagging the use of cases to get a better sense of what is being taught across the school, especially to ensure strategically identified critical issues are adequately covered.”

Franz Heukamp stresses renewal: “We take every aspect of the learning of our participants very seriously, from the contents and materials, to the professor and delivery model. We offer constant training to our professors and regular evaluation to make sure they are offering the best possible learning experience. We also count on the help of an innovation learning unit, with 12 professionals that regularly test out new methods and experiences to enhance the learning experience.”

Several schools mentioned initiatives to collaborate and share with peer institutions, especially in relation to technology, in order to advance case pedagogy everywhere. The leaders of top schools feel a responsibility to support other schools, especially in less well resourced contexts. For Costis Maglaras, “How we teach, what we teach, and how we support in-classroom teaching are strategic decisions for every school. Moreover, schools with higher levels of resources have a responsibility to lead pedagogical innovation and to share the fruits of their efforts with others, so that the impact of their pedagogical effort is widely leveraged.”

Based on the generous reflections shared by these ten deans, the case method appears to be in dynamic, good shape, still relevant, and in safe hands. We offer the last word to Srikant Datar: “Over time we have indeed seen the case method evolve, which is necessary and welcome.  Ultimately, the essence of the original vision persists and remains effective. Case method teaching has already endured for a century here at HBS, and has had an impact on hundreds of other business schools, thousands of companies, and millions of managers and employees across the globe. In a world changing faster than ever, it looks well placed to continue to help people seeking to shape a better future for decades to come.”

This article was published in Connect, July 2023.