Benefits Of Case Study Based Learning In Business Education

By Author: CBS
Total Articles: 26
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The world of business and economics is changing rapidly which require change and upgrades in techniques and tools employed in business education to keep it relevant. Case study based learning is one such method that allows institutes that impart business education to do so. It facilitates interdisciplinary learning and can be used to highlight connections between specific academic topics and real-world societal issues and applications. Some of the top management colleges in Kolkata have made case studies a significant component of their curriculum. Case studies are effective in building cognitive skills of students to help them move from one level of knowledge to the next, by building analytical skills, critical thinking, comprehension, synthesis, and evaluation, and application abilities.
Typically a case study presents a vague management problem for a specific business from a specific industry. It is often an issue that the top brass of a company is having trouble with. Sufficient objective and subjective data is provided in the case informing further on the problem. Examples of such data include a history of the company ...
... and relevant financial data. Sometimes cases also include supporting data such as the number of employees in a company, its location, and products and services.
The data could seem overwhelming at first, but the challenge that cutting through the data and filtering out relevant information poses, is what leads to the development of valuable skills.
Case studies on different areas of business education such as marketing, finance, human resources, operations etc. are used in MBA classrooms. A marketing case study could focus on a company that is just entering a new market, or an existing organisation’s challenge to tackle the influx of cheaper competing services. Another problem statement could be in the form of determining pricing for existing goods and services of a company that offers consumer goods.
In finance case study students could be asked to evaluate the cash flow status for a company and define a strategy to improve the accounts receivable policies. Another crucial problem statement can be finding the optimal mix of equity and debt for a company.
Operations case studies may be based on improving the efficiency of a manufacturing unit, working on the right mix of inventory and finished goods, or the decision to re-engineer the supply chain management system and reduce the dependency of global raw materials.
Owing to the unmatchable sharpening of skills that the case study based technique offers, a number of MBA colleges in West Bengal and all over the country are choosing to incorporate this method.