CASE METHOD FOR DIGITAL NATIVES

TEACHING AND RESEARCH

Editor
AJOY KUMAR DEY

Sub-editor
SHREYA MISHRA
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Contents

Foreword vii
Case Method and 21st Century Learning ix
About the Editor and Sub-editor xxv
Contributors xxvii

GAZING THE CRYSTAL-BALL

1. Case Teaching and Learning in a Post-COVID World 3
Soumitra Dutta
2. Future of Business Case Studies 8
Jyoti Bachani
3. Teaching Cases: Do They Have an Online Future? 18
Philip C Zerrillo and Prakash Bagri
CASE AS A METHOD OF TEACHING
4. Reflections on the Future of Case Pedagogy in
Management Education 27
Mohammad Akbar
5. Thoughts on the Evolving Case Method 39
Richard McCracken
6. The Case Method Approach: Brewing Storms between Digital
Immigrant Professors and Digital Native Students? 50
Jan-Jan Soon
7. A Learner’s Diary—Case Method Innoventions in Digital Era 60
Sonia Mehrotra
USING TEACHING CASES
8. Effective Use of Case Method as a Pedagogical Tool 73
Reeti Kulshrestha
9. Envisioning the Teaching Note of the Future 82
María Ballesteros-Sola and Michael M. Goldman
10. Dynamics of Case Study Method in Business Education—A
Holistic View of Business Pedagogy to Combat the Challenges
of the Digital World 100
Tahir Ali
11. Management Instructors’ Response Strategies to Teaching
Amidst the COVID-19 Challenges 110
Debapratim Purkayastha
12. Building Practical Wisdom with Case Studies in Executive
Education 117
Wolfgang Amann and Shiv Tripathi
vi | Contents

ON-LINE CASE TEACHING

13. What Challenges You More in Online Case Teaching? A
Research-based Interpretative Study 133
Indranil Bose and Soma Bose Biswas
14. Case-based Flipped Class Teaching Model for Generation Y
and Z: A New Road to Embark on Effective Learning Pedagogy
for Business Studies 155
Mustaghis ur Rahman
15. Perspective of Students to Enhance Effectiveness of Case-Based
Teaching in Higher Management Education 164
MMT Wickramasinghe, SWSB Dasanayaka and GD Samarasinghe
CASE WRITING
16. Divide and Conquer: An Innovative Methodology to Case
Writing with Impact 185
Matthew T. Mullarkey
17. Contemporary Business Management Teaching Case
Development: A Perspective 213
PAP Samantha Kumara and TR Wijesundara
18. So Much of What We Thought We Knew is Now Wrong:
Case Study Analysis and Design in the Contemporary
Business Environment 224
John Walsh
19. Effective Written Analysis of Cases 234
Sandeep Puri and Rakesh Singh
CASE STUDY RESEARCH
20. Dissecting the Case Study Research: Yin and Eisenhardt
Approaches 243
Shreya Mishra
21. Dissecting the Case Study Research: Stake and
Merriam Approaches 265
Shreya Mishra
22. Netnography: Case Study Research in the Digital Age 294
Hanna Lehtimäki, Jatta Pitkänen, Kaisa Henttonen and
Ville-Veikko Piispanen
23. Inductive Case Study Research with Organisations: A
Framework of Collaborative Research Strategies and
Intersecting Knowledge Interests 307
Päivi Eriksson, Jaana Woiceshyn and Tero Montonen
CASE CONFERENCE
24. Enhancing Academic Value and Engagement of a Case Conference 325
Veenu Sharma
Author Index 333
Case Method and 21st Century Learning

Year 2021 commemorates the 100th anniversary of the first written case study
that was produced by Harvard Business School in April 1921. BIMTECH
joins the celebration because of its commitment to creating a vibrant case
ecosystem in India and connecting case-focused institutes, organisations
and individuals from around the world. The Center for Management Case
Development (CMCD), since its establishment in 2010, has organised the
annual International Conference on Management Cases (ICMC), in which
over 650 cases have been presented and over 280 cases have been published
in research journals. In addition, CMCD has provided academic support
to ten volumes of the South Asian Journal of Business and Management
Cases (SAJBMC), a case focused research journal published by SAGE, and
has regularly held case competitions to involve MBA faculty and students.
Since 2018, CMCD has been organising workshops and webinars with the
sole purpose of helping management faculty understand the nuances of case
writing, teaching and research.
The of this volume germinated in the workshop conducted by Prof.
V.G. Narayanan of HBS in 2020, where we came to know about the
preparations for the ‘Case Method Cenetary’ in 2021. We got excited and
wanted to create something to mark the occasion for generations to come.
Post many brainstorming sessions, we decided to come out with a book
with contributions by experts of the case method. It was visioned that
the articles will capture the present texture of case method worldwide
and look into the future of case method of teaching and research under
the influence of the industrial revolution, generation change, technology
such as ubiquitous Internet, mobile with camera and recorder, and
digitisation of every facet of professional and personal lives. This
book is the fruit of the efforts put in by authors, reviewers, editors and
the publisher.

Understanding the Case Study

The case study eludes a single definition and the case method has different
interpretations. To understand the structure and utility of management cases
meant to be used for classroom teaching, we looked up many sources, mainly
business school websites, and found some common themes:
• ‘A case is usually a description of an actual situation, commonly
involving a decision, a challenge, an opportunity, a problem, or an issue
faced by a person or persons in an organization.’
x | Editorial

• ‘A case study is an account of an activity, event, or problem that contains

a real or hypothetical situation and includes the complexities you would
encounter in the workplace.’
• ‘Case studies are usually written as a narrative, i.e., like a story, using
the contexts of real-life organisations. When you analyse a case study it
helps you to practise applying knowledge, and your thinking, reasoning,
and decision-making skills, to a real-life situation.’
• ‘A case study is a snapshot of an organization or an industry wrestling
with a dilemma, written to serve a set of pedagogical objectives...what
distinguishes a pedagogical case study from other writing is that it
centers on one or more dilemmas.’
• ‘The case discusses issues that allow for many different courses of action
– the issues discussed are not difficult to solve. But by providing rich
background of the case, the author makes it compelling and important
for the creative use of problem solving and decision-making tools.’
• ‘The case method is a participatory, discussion-based way of learning
where students gain skills in critical thinking, communication, and
group dynamics. It is a type of problem-based learning.’
• ‘Case studies are stories that are used as a teaching tool to show the
application of a theory or concept to real situations.’
• ‘Dependent on the goal they are meant to fulfill, cases can be fact-driven
and deductive where there is a correct answer, or they can be context
driven where multiple solutions are possible.’
• ‘Good cases generally have the following features: they tell a good story,
are recent, include dialogue, create empathy with the main characters,
are relevant to the reader, serve a teaching function, require a dilemma
to be solved, and have generality.’
Based on the objective of writing and intended outcomes, a case can
be classified as a teaching or a research case. A teaching case aspires to
achieve two outcomes: to cover a portion of a management course and to
create an environment in which students can learn decision-making and
problem-solving in an almost real-life surrounding. The sole purpose of
a teaching case is to help the process of teaching–learning in a class. As
against this, a research case is written with the objective of developing a
deeper understanding of a phenomenon to create new knowledge. A research
case qualifies to be an academic output.

What Is a Good Teaching Case?

A good teaching case is of decision and problem-solving applied type, should
demonstrate linkage with theory and must have a protagonist who is facing
a dilemma that unfolds before the reader within the first two paragraphs; the
 Case Method and 21st Century Learning | xi

case must have dramatisation, must suggest different alternatives to solve

the dilemma and is told as a story in a fashion that engages the readers.

Case Study Research

Defining case study research is not easy as it varies across disciplines,
especially according to the underlying philosophies (or paradigms) involved.
Mills (2014) defines case study research as:
Simply put, case study is a research strategy whose characteristics
include:
• a focus on the interrelationships that constitute the context of a
specific entity (such as an organization, an event, phenomenon, or
person),
• analysis of the relationship between the contextual factors and the
entity being studied, and
• the explicit purpose of using those insights (of the interactions
between contextual relationships and the entity in question) to
generate theory and/or contribute to extant theory.
Case study is neither a method (such as surveys, interviews or
observations) nor a methodology that can refer to the use of a particular
method or methods and the theoretical framework that informs its use.
Because a case study may involve any combination of methods and
methodologies, it can be better described as a strategy, a road map to the
process of decision-making during the design and development.
A research case stresses the link between an entity and its context. It
unfolds before the reader what the relationship can explain either about the
uniqueness of the case or its generalisability to comparable relationships.
By careful selection of the event and a contextually well-bonded
phenomenon, a researcher enhances the chance of producing two outputs:
a teaching case and also a research case. After unravelling the scope and
challenges of a teaching case, the study will move over to understand the
motivation and execution of a research case.

Shift of Advantages and Disadvantages over the Past

Hundred Years
Cases enable students to learn from interactions with others in which
individual perspectives and assumptions are challenged and stretched. The
case method belongs to a group of discussion-based learning methodologies
such as business simulation and experiential learning. Besides connecting
theory with practice, the case method helps in integrating management
knowledge that are delivered in silos. Case method is a wonderful
xii | Editorial

pedagogical tool that puts students in the shoes of a decision-maker and asks
them to take decisions based on the information present in the case. In an
organisation, when a group of people try to solve a problem, different views,
perspectives and opinions provide different angles to the same problem.
There is no right answer, but still, one has to make a decision while facing
high level of complexities. This is how the case method prepares students
for in the industry.
By stimulating debate and discussions among students, the case
method helps develop skills such as problem-solving, analysing, decision-
making in complex and dynamic situations, coping with ambiguities, public
speaking and leadership potential. Case-based learning equips the student to
conduct research and analyse a problem, before arriving at recommendations.
Critiques point out several limitations in the classical way cases are
delivered. For instance, cases lacking the scientific rigour and offering no
scope for generalisation to the wider population, difficulty in getting rid
of the researcher’s bias, presenting unique situations that can never be
replicated, being time consuming and retarding the progress of the course,
not being ‘real’, easily becoming outdated and often failing to capture real-
life problems.
Other voices point out that every case starts with standard disclaimer
statement that it was prepared ‘as the basis of class discussion rather than
to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative
situation’. Yet students need to know what practices are effective and
ineffective. Even if the case method flips the class and makes the instructor
a facilitator while students learn from their peers, the students still need the
guidance of professors.
Even after a hundred years, some of the parameters of using cases
remain unaltered such as the need for learning through the experiential
method, bringing a piece of real world into the classroom, experimenting
with decisions in a low-risk environment, developing skills (skills may have
changed), connecting theory with practice, avoiding boredom of reading
from the books, and leveraging what happened in the past to help students
understand the challenges of the future. Nonetheless, involving students in
learning through cases still poses a major challenge.
The features of the case method that have undergone evolution are
online delivery, recorded cases, easy availability of information to students
and teachers alike forcing case authors to evolve their art, live cases, and
virtual presence of a protagonist in the class. These all have impacted case
method in a major way.
A century back, the management thoughts were very Western in their
origins and style. With emerging economies, a shift has taken place and
 Case Method and 21st Century Learning | xiii

Asian business models and management issues are being studied with
more vigour. Concepts like bottom of the pyramid, mass customisation and
building a brand in fast growing markets have acquired new meanings and
depth in the highly heterogenous and diverse Asian markets in terms of
culture, resources, technology and talent.

Relevance of Case Method

There are three factors that helped case method hold its ground for the
past hundred years: use of Socratic method, participant-based learning
and embracing softer human element in management rather than teaching
it as pure science. Case method is still effective because it is based on
the Socratic method. By throwing challenges, it enables students to learn
critical thinking, analysing and decision-making. Being a participant-centric
learning method, the case approach expects a high level of involvement
from students prior to class, during the discussion and afterwards, in order to
derive the maximum advantage. The presence of the human element makes
the case method still relevant on the face of highly integrative and incredibly
fast business processes. A business manager can ‘puzzle out’ the complex
situation and decide how to proceed. The best way to learn this is through
cases. It makes students comfortable with things that are not just ‘formulae’.
The case method of teaching will remain a relevant and important tool
of pedagogy if cases are written to impart 21st-century skills.

21st-century Learnings
An oft repeated but still relevant quote is worth mentioning:
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist…using
technologies that haven’t been invented…in order to solve problems we
don’t even know are problems yet.
The statement is attributed to Gunderson et al. (2004). But Richard
Riley, former US Secretary of Education, has also often used it in his
addresses.
Further, the Time Magazine in its issue of 18 December 2006 published
an article, ‘How to Build a Student for the 21st Century’, the gist of which
is as follows:
This is a story about…whether an entire generation of kids will fail to
make the grade in the global economy because they can’t think their way
through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information
from bad, or speak a language other than [their own].
Even after realising that skills of the past century will not help a
student in the 21st century, we face challenges to prepare students for work,
xiv | Editorial

citizenship and life in the future. Fundamental changes in the economy,

jobs and businesses have reshaped workplaces and the nature of work,
and have generated the demand for new skill sets. Networked economy,
globalisation, heightened demand for mobility, easy migration, technology-
and generation-driven changing markets, global and local environmental
challenges, and renewed focus on ethics and governance has added urgency
to equip students to face the 21st-century contexts.
To map out the 21st-century skill set, we delved into frameworks
proposed by Delor Report and UNESCO (2015), Wagner (2010) and the
Change Leadership Group, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC
2020), Asia Society of Partnership for Global Learning, AACTE: Partnership
for 21st Century Skills (P21)(AACTE 2010), WHO Life skills, OECD, and
CBSE India (ATCS). The next section describes 21st-century skills drawing
inspiration mainly from two reports: Asia Society of Partnership for Global
Learning and AACTE: Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21).

Case Method and 21-century Learning Skills

The deep dive into skills required points to the direction that cases, being
one of the tools for active learning intervention, will be needed to practice
three types of skills: Learning and Innovation skills; Information Media and
Technology skills, and Life and Career skills. Case method will not lose
ground if adequate flow of new cases in the areas of 21st-century learning
skills are made available.
Learning and Innovation skills are increasingly being recognised as
attributes that help students negotiate a more complex life and the rapidly
changing work environment of the 21st century. These skills are composed
of the 4Cs: Critical thinking and problem solving, Communication,
Collaboration, and Creativity and innovation. Critical thinking is the ability
to effectively analyse the pros and cons of a situation by evaluating all
evidences to arrive at a solution. It does not prescribe the application of a
preselected strategy. Critical thinking is agnostic of content and function. It
is applied by a football team manager facing the challenge of replacing an
injured player, a doctor performing heart surgery, a lawyer giving advice to a
client or a teacher handling a noisy class. Critical thinking helps in building
and retaining knowledge modules acquired over time. Communication
is about effectively articulating thoughts and ideas using all forms and
contexts of communication so as to put forward ideas or views for others to
understand and react to. In a workplace or recreation avenue, Collaboration
is about demonstrating the ability to work effectively and respectfully with
diverse teams. Finally, Creativity and innovation is the ability to use a wide
range of ideation techniques to create new and worthwhile ideas.
 Case Method and 21st Century Learning | xv

Information, Media and Technology Skills have three sections:

information, media and ICT literacy. A case written to address these skill
sets will have higher acceptance. If a student can access and evaluate
information critically and competently and manage the flow of information
from a wide variety of sources, that is a demonstration of information skill.
This skill will help a student sieve through the huge information available
all around and avoid using spurious information.
Media literate students can understand both how and why media
messages are constructed and how to create maximum impact. They can
create media products by understanding and utilising the most appropriate
media creation tools, characteristics and conventions. ICT literacy can help
a student in understanding what is relevant information, how effectively
it can be communicated, and which technology can help in creating and
communicating the information. This kind of literacy helps a student
use technology as a tool to research by efficient and effective searching,
organising, evaluating and communicating information.
Life and Career Skills equip a student with the skills to sail through
complex life and work environments. Today’s life and work environments
require more focused thinking skills and deeper content knowledge. A
student should develop five life and career skills: Flexibility and Adaptability,
Initiative and Self-Direction, Social and Cross-Cultural Skills, Productivity
and Accountability, and Leadership and Responsibility.

Objectives of Using Case Method in the 21 Century

While the purpose of using cases in management classes remains grounded
to covering some portion of the course and developing skills, the objectives
for executive education and research are undergoing a shift. In executive
education, similar to management development programmes, cases need
not cover a module in the curriculum or hone skills; they rather need to
equip the participants with current trends in market forces, people issues and
leadership competencies.
Issues such as city and global development; networked economy, climate
change, sustainability and global warming; shift of focus from ‘only global’
to ‘global and local’; reimaging culture as a common high ground between
the wealthy and impoverished sections of a society; skill- and labour-
based immigration; making every section of geography self-sufficient in
terms of production and consumption of resources and governance; and
providing quality health and education services are knocking at the door,
demanding quick remedial or preventive solutions. Challenges of providing
cost effective and sustainable energy; managing growing negative effects of
xvi | Editorial

Internet, media and democracy; advancing inequality, privacy, diversity and

population increase can also be added to the list.
Such emerging issues, for which strategies are being tested and no
uniform opinion about their success has come out, takes time to enter into
the books by replacing some existing modules. Building a quick inventory
of relevant cases is an assured and cost-effective way to create rich context
for the participants of executive or management development programmes
to apply their decisions and learn through simulated outcomes.

Competencies of a Business Leader in the 21st Century

The role of a business leader is to foresee the uncertainties and chart out
plans to not only manage them but also achieve the milestones in line with
the vision and mission of the business. A leader should be equipped with
the capability to counter market forces and people issues. The dominant
forces in any market are the cumulative effects of the behaviours and wants
of consumers and suppliers of goods and services influenced by external
environment, particularly competitors. People issues encompass managing
diversity in work force, deeper understanding of specific technical expertise,
multigenerational workplace, prevention of negative behaviour, gig economy
and many more.
The leadership competencies are at a crossroad. A versatile leader must
possess skills that are perennial, such as leading people, the ability to manage
operations, making decisions, prioritising investments and managing
the bottom line. At the same time, they must also develop capabilities to
manage the rapidly evolving technology and data driven and networked
business environment, leading through ambiguity, being technology savvy;
managing changing customer and talent demographics, and managing
national and cultural differences. While leading through influence, a leader
should be adept in remote work, and take position on social issues, fairness,
inclusion and privacy. There are four challenges before the leaders: the
inability to adopt transparent processes, the lack of standards for technology
governance, the absence of collaborative efforts and performance measures.
cases embedded in matching context should be written to inform participants
about fresh knowledge and challenges, also to enable them to apply decision
making.
The following paragraphs will exclusively focus on discussing the
ramification of case method as a research strategy.

Case Study as a Research Method

From the research perspective, case method is well established in
communities where qualitative research has found acceptance, like in
 Case Method and 21st Century Learning | xvii

Sweden and Scandinavian countries. It is less accepted where quantitative

research still rules the roost. Even where case is a valid research method,
there is a perceived gap between a teaching case and a case study research.
Sometimes the gap is so wide that it is difficult to define that the teaching
cases and case research are different activities, denying the development
of cases for teaching as a valid academic activity. Future researchers need
to build up some ontological and epistemological basis to bridge the gap
between teaching cases and case study research.
The case study research is making a comeback in sociological, medical,
educational and legal research because it allows researchers to find answers
to questions of ‘how’ and ‘why’ within a particular real-world context by
using a broad range of methodological tools. Researchers often select a case
study as a method of research because a case may be epistemologically in
synch with the reader’s experience and such a reader finds a natural basis
for generalisation.

Case Study Serves as a Bridge across Traditional

Paradigms
Case study defines a context in which researchers can respond to the vagaries
of real life and move towards a paradigmatic openness. Paradigms are basic
assumptions about how social reality is perceived, understood and explained.
While most research is based on a single paradigm, few empirical papers
show the advantages of using multiple paradigms within a study. This is
particularly consistent with the field of cross-cultural management because
it would be ethnocentric to consider intercultural situations only from one
perspective, usually that of one’s own culture. Researchers argue that case
study offers a bridge across the traditional research paradigms. The case
study has broad research application and epistemological, ontological and
methodological flexibility. When used as a research approach, case study
is both the process and the end product of research. It provides a delineated
boundary for inquiry and a structural process within which any methods
appropriate to investigating a research area can be applied.
Case studies can be designed as either single- or multiple-case. Single
cases are used to confirm or challenge a theory, or to represent a unique or
extreme case. It is also ideal for revelatory case situation where an observer
may have access to a phenomenon that was previously inaccessible. Crafting
a single-case design requires careful investigation to avoid misrepresentation
and to maximise the investigator’s access to the evidence while controlling
researcher’s bias. These studies can be holistic or embedded, the latter
occurring when the same case study involves more than one unit of analysis.
xviii | Editorial

Using a multiple-case research study allows for a more in-depth

understanding of the cases as a unit, through comparison of similarities and
differences of the individual cases embedded within the quintain. Evidence
arising from multiple-case studies is often stronger and more reliable
than from single-case research. Multiple-case studies allow for more
comprehensive exploration of research questions and theory development.
Multiple-case studies follow a replication logic. This is not to be confused
with sampling logic where a selection is made out of a population, for
inclusion in the study. This type of sample selection is improper in a case
study. Multiple case designs offer the opportunity for enhancing reliability
through replication by selecting cases to predict similar results or to show
contrasting results but with theoretical reasons.
Each individual case study consists of a ‘whole’ study, in which facts are
gathered from various sources and conclusions drawn on those facts.

Case Study Research in Postgraduate Curriculum

Treading the conventional practice of selecting a teaching case in a
management class does serve the purpose of covering a module of the
course, but it cannot contribute to creating a research mindset in students.
Picking up a research case as an assignment for a short duration or as a
summer internship project will equip students with knowledge of the
research process, which will help them, in the workplaces, in identifying a
problem, assessing all possible alternatives to solve the problem, selecting
the most appropriate one, and implementing and measuring the outcome.
Conducting a research-based project as part of the curriculum may
expand the students’ knowledge about the current trends in research on
various topics, and may help them understand how to reach to the root of
the problem as done by the researchers. Moreover, a research case study
includes phenomenon, context and theory within the case itself. Hence,
students can clearly see the integration of the three and can understand well
how practice meets theory. A research case will fill up the gap of ‘Doing’ and
‘Being’ in the cycle of knowing-doing-being.
Adopting a research-oriented project will expand the connections of
the faculty, and hence the institute, with industry, thereby, enhancing the
opportunity for consultancy and practice-oriented research. In reputed
B-schools, students are required to develop a dissertation during their
master’s programme. Indian B-schools should adopt that practice. Integrating
case study research into the MBA curriculum will prepare students equally
well for the three types of careers that a student aspires to pursue: research/
teaching, entrepreneurship or life in a corporate.
 Case Method and 21st Century Learning | xix

Case Study Research in the 21st Century

Uncertainty is our ability to predict confidently into the future. The
subjective part of uncertainty is associated with our inability to understand
what is going on. Uncertainty, associated with the objective characteristic
of an environment are those that don’t allow any kind of prediction, not
even a probabilistic one. Such uncertainty is the result of unexpected events,
unpredictable human reactions and the vast complexity of the world. The
complexity level of the ever-existing and all-encompassing uncertainty gets
pronounced due to disruptions such as a pandemic.
In such an environment, strategic foresight offers a way forward.
Strategic foresight does not predict the future but rather makes it possible to
imagine multiple scenarios in which we can use our ability to sense, shape
and adapt in creative and agile ways. Strategic foresight enables us to focus
on ‘how’ to think and takes us away from ‘what’ to think.
The case method has amazingly held its ground and remained
relevant for the past one hundred years. Though there is no immediate
threat of losing ground to any other pedagogical tool, the case method
has to adapt on two fronts: its process of delivery and the content and
issues to cover. The digitisation of the delivery process will enable
remote delivery, help in scaling up and introduce more visual experience
but will take away the personal touch, making measure of learning
outcomes difficult. Improvements needed on delivery side are to help in
establishing effective flipped classroom, enabling faculty in individual and
group evaluation, technology-driven quick and comprehensive feedback,
visually enriched content presentation quality and many more. Technology
will facilitate rise in collaborative case research, multi-country cases and
multicultural studies.
Shifting preferences of the business world, demand for skill upgradation
and newer leadership competencies, together with generational change of
the learners, will demand reorientation of the content and issues to cover.
While predicting the impact on the process of delivery will be highly
contextual and will vary depending on the expertise and resources of the
faculty and the institute, the future of the content shows three predictable
directions. Fresh cases will be required for practising learning and innovation
skills, information, media and technology skills, and life and career skills
in digitally enriched context. Competencies of business leaders in the 21stt
century has undergone reframing. To comprehend newer competencies of a
business leader, case repositories will need fresh cases.
Market forces and business dynamics have given push to the practice
of innovation management; perspectives of individual, institutional and
corporate entrepreneurship; circular economy; sustainability; ethics; and
xx | Editorial

governance. Added to these are SDGs and their achievement status, post-
COVID recovery strategies of different sectors, integrative effects of fourth
industrial revolution, concern of business continuity and agility, and emerging
technologies such as fintech, AI, Block chain, nanotechnology, etc. Their
effect on human behaviour will demand fresh insight. To understand the
emerging concepts, exploratory studies are needed and case study research
is often appropriate.

Way Forward
Applying the criterion of ‘fruitfulness’ of philosopher Imre Lakatos, the case
method should not be judged according to what it has been and how far
it has helped but on the promises it holds in the present context. The past
history of case method cannot be repeated in the future. There are copious
evidence that some egregiously immoral behaviours displayed by iconic
business leaders educated at prestigious B-schools, where case method was
preeminent, have caused pain and suffering to the masses. Lack of focus
on morality, ethical behaviour and value-based education got exposed.
However, for case method, the situation is not that bad, which may require
cutting the ‘umbilical cord’ of history, for which a ‘restating of the purpose’
should be enough. This article found that to remain relevant, the case method
must overcome two challenges by restating the respective purposes—impact
of technology on the case method processes and reorienting the content to
meet the current demand. These two steps may elongate the relevance of
case method for the digital natives for maybe a few more decades, after
which it will be replaced by a new avatar of case method that will produce
cases shorter in length, digitally enriched, with more dynamic content and
written for empathy, compassion, ethical behaviour and moral values that
may help in producing a new generation of decision makers who are truly
‘future agile’.
The book has seven sections containing 24 articles written by 36
authors hailing from 11 countries—Finland, India, Malaysia, Pakistan,
Philippines, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, UAE, United Kingdom and
United States—sharing their thoughts on seven dimensions of future
of case studies, case method, teaching with cases, online case teaching,
case writing, case study research and case conference. The diverse mix of
topics and countries of origin of authors with multiple cultures lend a truly
international perspective to the book. With this background, the book has
successfully presented the current texture of case method across the globe.
Following this editorial piece is the section on gazing at the crystal ball
consists of three articles. Soumitra Dutta, Professor of Management and
former founding Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business at
 Case Method and 21st Century Learning | xxi

Cornell University, New York, talks of ‘Case Teaching and Learning in A

Post-COVID World’. Jyoti Bachani, Professor at Saint Mary’s College of
California, shares her thought on ‘Future of Business Case Studies’. In the
third article, Philip Zerillo, Deputy Dean and Admissions Head at the Indian
School of Business, probes ‘Teaching Cases: Do They Have an Online
Future?’
The four articles in the next section on case method is an interesting
mix: ‘Reflections on the Future of Case pedagogy in management education’
by Mohammad Akbar, Professor (Strategy), Birla Institute of Management
Technology; ‘Future of Case Method’ by Richard McCracken, Director,
Case Centre UK; ‘The Case Method Approach: Brewing Storms Between
Digital Immigrant Professors and Digital Native Students?’ by Jan Soon,
Associate Professor (School of Economics, Finance & Banking), Universiti
Utara Malaysia, and ‘A Learner’s Diary - Case Method Innoventions in
Digital Era’ Sonia Mehrotra, Professor & Head-Centre of Excellence for
Case Development, WeSchool, India. These are elucidating different aspects
of case as a method of teaching.
The five cases in the following section of teaching with cases
highlight the challenges faced in five different situations of using
teaching cases. ‘Understanding Case Method as a Pedagogical Tool’
by Reeti Kulshrestha, Research Scholar, Birla Institute of Management
Technology emphasises the structure of a teaching case. María Ballesteros-
Sola, Assistant Professor of Management at the MVS School of Business
& Economics and Michael Goldman, Editor-in-Chief, EEMCS, Emerald
and Professor of Sport Management at the University of San Francisco
explain the role of a teaching note in their article entitled ‘Envisioning the
Teaching Note of the Future’. The impact of digital technology is narrated
in the article ‘Dynamics of Case Study Method in Business Education—A
Holistic View of Business Pedagogy to Combat the Challenges of the
Digital World’ written by Tahir Ali, Former Dean, Faculty of Management
& Administrative Sciences, University of Karachi, Pakistan. Debapratim
Purakayastha, Director, ICFAI Case Research Center, who is no more with
us, had submitted the article ‘Management Instructors’ Response Strategies
to Teaching Amidst the COVID-19 Challenges’. Wolfgang Amann,
Professor of strategy, Academic Director of degree and custom programmes
of HEC Paris in Qatar and Shiv Tripathi, Dean Training, Professor, IIHMR
University, Jaipur, in their article ‘How to Build Practical Wisdom in
Executive Education with Case Studies’ point out that the role of cases is to
build practical wisdom in executive education.
Teaching cases in an on-line environment throws different set of
challenges. Indranil Bose, Dean, School of Business, University of Bolton,
xxii | Editorial

UAE, and Soma Bose Biswas, Assistant Professor, Heritage Business

School, India, outline the challenges in the article ‘What Challenges You
More in Online Case Teaching? A Research Based Interpretative Study’.
Easily flipping the classroom to extract more time for discussion by yielding
control of the class to students, the learning can be favourably impacted.
Mustaghis-Ur-Rehman, Senior Professor and Associate Dean at the Bahria
Business School, Karachi, brought out this aspect vividly in the article
‘Case-Based Flipped Class Teaching Model for Generation Y and Z: A New
Road to Embark on Effective Learning Pedagogy for Business Studies’.
Finally, in the article ‘Perspective of Students to Enhance Effectiveness
of Case-Based Teaching in Higher Management Education’, the authors
MMT Wickramasinghe, SWSB Dasanayaka and GD Samarasinghe, all
Professors of Dept of MOT and Dept of IM, Faculty of Business, University
of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, have touched the tricky issue of
effectiveness of case-based teaching.
In the next section on teaching cases, four articles capture the scenarios of
case writing and analysis. In ‘Divide and Conquer—An Innovative Method to
Case Writing with Impact’, Matthew T. Mullarkey, Director DBA Program,
University of South Florida, USA, suggests a framework for developing
a case by student teams. P A P Samantha Kumara and T R Wijesundara,
Faculty of Management and Finance, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka,
in ‘Contemporary Business Management Teaching Case Development:
A Perspective’ portray the shifted focus in developing a teaching case for
contemporary business. Tips on case analysis have been provided in the next
two articles: ‘So Much of What We Thought We Knew Is Now Wrong: Case
Study Analysis and Design in the Contemporary Business Environment’
by John Walsh, Director English Language Program, International College,
Krirk University, Bangkok, and ‘Effective Written Analysis of Cases’ by
Sandeep Puri, Professor (marketing), Asian Institute of Management,
Philippines and Rakesh Singh, Associate Professor, Institute of Management
Technology, India.
The section of case study research consists of four articles. The first and
the second articles by Shreya Mishra, Assistant Editor of the South Asian
Journal of Business and Management Cases, Birla Institute of Management
Technology, critically dissect the case study research to compare the
approaches of four thought leaders—Yin, Eisenhardt, Stake and Merriam.
The method of netnography in framing a case study research in the digital
age is introduced by Hanna Lehtimaki, Professor of Management, Jatta
Pitkänen, Kaisa Henttonen and Ville-Veikko, all from University of Eastern
Finland Piispanen. Paivi Eriksson, Woiceshyn Jaana and Montonen Tero,
 Case Method and 21st Century Learning | xxiii

University of Eastern Finland, have discussed ‘Collaborative Case Study

Research’ in the final article of this section.
Most of the B-schools with focus on case teaching and research have a
case centre and organise annual case conferences. Veenu Sharma, Assistant
Professor, Birla Institute of Management Technology, has contributed the
last article entitled ‘Enhancing Academic Value and Engagement of a Case
Conference’.
The editorial team is grateful to all the contributors for submitting
their articles well within time, despite their numerous other commitments.
Without the unflinching support of Dr Harivansh Chaturvedi, Director,
BIMTECH, this book project would not have seen the light of the day. When
the chips were down, the cheerful faces of colleagues and supportive stance
helped in pulling ourselves up. Ms. Jyoti Mehrotra of Bloomsbury and Mr
Pranab Sarma of SAGE Miles deserve our praise in helping the project to
push through the deadlines.
The editorial team hopes that the 24 articles justify the title of the book,
Case Method for Digital Natives: Teaching and Research, and familiarises
a reader with the current texture of case research globally, predicting the
changes that might happen in the future.

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Contributors

Akbar, Mohammad, Birla Institute of Management Technology, India

Ali, Tahir, University of Karachi, Pakistan
Amann, Wolfgang, HEC Paris, France
Bachani, Jyoti, Saint Mary’s College of California, USA
Bagri, Prakash, Indian School of Business, India
Ballesteros-Sola, María, California State University Channel Islands, USA
Biswas, Soma Bose, Heritage Business School, India
Bose, Indranil, University of Bolton, UAE
Dasanayaka, S. W. S. B., University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
Dutta, Soumitra, Cornell University, USA
Eriksson, Päivi, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
Goldman, Michael M., University of San Francisco, USA
Henttonen, Kaisa, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
Kulshrestha, Reeti, Birla Institute of Management Technology, India
Kumara, Samantha P.A.P., University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka
Lehtimäki, Hanna, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
McCracken, Richard, The Case Centre, UK
Mehrotra, Sonia, S.P. Mandali’s Prin. L. N. Welingkar Institute of
Management Development and Research, India
Mishra, Shreya, Birla Institute of Management Technology, India
Montonen, Tero, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
Mullarkey, Matthew T., University of South Florida, USA
Piispanen, Ville-Veikko, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
Pitkänen, Jatta, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
Puri, Sandeep, Asian Institute of Management, Philippines
Purkayastha, Debapratim, ICFAI Business School Hyderabad, India
Samarasinghe, G.D., University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
Sharma, Veenu, Birla Institute of Management Technology, India
Singh, Rakesh, IMT Ghaziabad, India
Soon, Jan-Jan, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia
Tripathi, Shiv, IIHMR University, India
ur Rahman, Mustaghis, Bahria Business School, Karachi Campus, Pakistan
xxviii | Contributors

Walsh, John, Krirk University, Bangkok

Wickramasinghe, M.M.T., University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
Wijesundara, T.R., University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka
Woiceshyn, Jaana, University of Calgary, Canada
Zerrillo, Philip C., Thammasat University, Thailand