Description
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS GUIDE – COMM 7150
Case study analysis is important in the short run for completing assignments, of course, and it is
more important in the long run since much of your future success will depend on your leadership
skills in analyzing new situations and on effectively communicating your recommendations in
oral and written forms.
The following provides information which will help you in preparing for posting discussions and
in responding to the discussion posts for the case studies. While additional cases may be used for
discussion posts in the future, these notes apply to the Case Study assignments, for which the
class will all post on one (Wounded Warrior Project), and the remaining four will be divided up
with one half the class responsible for discussion posts and the other half for the comments.
Reading the Case
Your goal is to analyze a case as efficiently as possible. This does not mean quickly skimming
the case, and seeing if someone else has written something about the case. A case generally
needs to be read two to three times. I suggest beginning with a quick read to identify some of the
key points. It may help to jot down a timeline and key players. This review of the case will
likely highlight critical concerns or concepts which link to the weekly readings, or readings from
earlier in the term. At this point, it’s helpful to pull and review the related material, and then read
the case again more carefully. Another review will allow you to highlight the most crucial
points, the most important underlying issues. This will give your discussion or comments a
focus, and will help you integrate resources into your discussion for coherence and emphasis.
While a more detailed review is necessary for the discussion posts, doing this, and taking notes,
will provide helpful information for writing comments as well.
Bear in mind, that many students may be so impressed with strategies in a case that they never
sufficiently analyze the situation (central problem, critical factors, objectives and chronology of
events) which is key to understanding the actions taken. When applicable, break the problem
down further by examining motivations, constraints, goals, and critical action plans.
Some cases may have discussion or thought questions at the end. Those may or may not be
relevant; for example, some cases come from a public relations case study text, but our focus is
on the leadership and management pieces. These questions might be more helpful for those who
will be making comments versus those responsible for the discussion posts.
What should you do if specific facts or important facets of the case are omitted? If those aren’t
easily determined in an on-line search for information, you can make assumptions of fact that
are reasonable from the other facts given in the case.Case Analysis
Now that you have actively read the case and taken notes, you are ready to begin your analysis.
Different cases offer different opportunities for responses. With some cases, you may be
approaching your discussion from a problem-solving angle, in which your role may feel more
similar to that of participant in a group decision-making process whose goal is to arrive at
specific solutions to problems or issues, solutions that will be acceptable because they reflect
known facts and because you can commit yourself to their implementation. You must be
forewarned that you may not find a “single best solution” but several alternatives each with
merit. At other times, you may have to choose the solution with the least amount of risk.
In other cases, you may be critiquing approaches or offering different ones with different
projected outcomes. In these various approaches, you will focus on the Integrative Analysis, one
that weaves in pertinent information beyond that given in the case to enrich and to expand the
significance of one or more issues raised.
For example, examining and applying professionals’ opinions and recommendations for
leadership and employee relations would allow you to evaluate a case on internal relations more
thoroughly and critically, as well as more credibly. By doing so, you are answering questions
which require thinking beyond just the facts presented in the case study, questions such as:
1. What general principles are revealed in this case? What professional practices are
revealed?
2. Critique the solutions. What alternatives are available and how would you evaluate
them? What are your recommendations?
Note again that you are integrating information relevant to leadership rather than a history or
explanation of the organization, etc. The integration adds to your classmates’ understanding of
the case as well as our understanding of leadership, and the integration allows application
beyond just this one particular case study.
In your discussion – as in your case analysis – your critiques, alternatives and recommendations
will be greatly strengthened if you think and talk in terms of numbers when possible. The
business world is one interlaced with data. You may frown upon the suggestion that your
analysis and recommendations be tied down numerically. In some cases, you’d be right.
Practicing the skill of emphasizing the quantitative aspects of your analysis in support of your
qualitative position is perhaps one of the more valuable skills you can develop in the case study
method.
A possible outline could be to think in terms of Explain (leadership-related concepts), Apply
(those concepts to the case) and Evaluate (how do these concepts reframe the results and
possibly change approaches for the better?). In other words, you need to create a fusion of
outside research on leadership with the case. This approach allows you to get to synthesis and
application which are higher order management-level skills you will need in the future.Discussion Posts
Each should have a minimum of three sources outside of the case itself. Two of these should be
information not already part of your required readings, and at least one of these two should be
information related to leadership-related principles, versus additional case facts.
The first case study which everyone completes, will only need two sources – one from your
readings and one you find.