Page 8 - Ice Breaker Article

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Collaboration is multi-faceted. It is easy to see collaboration between the lecturer and the target
company when developing the case study but it is also more subtly the collaboration between the
delivery platforms, the research basis and environments in which the case study is grounded.

Co-operation
Here, if the case study has been developed as an e-resource then by definition the student is
accepting responsibility for self-directed learning and self-progression. This may mean that the
lecturer has to build in a more open access to his teaching methodology. Likewise it is inevitable
that the target company will be approached for co-operation in its development. This also impacts
on co-operation with in-house specialists such as video interviewing and editing, software
development such as Dreamweaver, Flash, Flipping Book etc. construction

Much has been said about the student but the lecturer also experiences fear and trepidation
with the development and use of case studies their analysis and use. After all, in the eyes of the
student body he or she is judged by the quality of the experience they take away with them. For
the lecturer analysis and delivery is the yardstick. However, if the e-resource integrates lecture
notes as an embedded resource, self-assessment tests and worked analysis this will go some way
to aiding the university in its objectives of providing students with more flexible and deliverable
course materials.

At this point the decision was taken that it was appropriate to marry the elements of producing
an electronically delivered interactive e-resource case study and its analysis with that of the ice
breaker case study in the hope that useful lessons might be drawn out as an exemplar for the case
methodology.

Taking the time to think about what was going on in the classroom especially the introductory
class, sparked the recognition that case analysis can at first sight be a daunting, if not a frightening
prospect to the student and no less so to the lecturer. In case analysis the students are given the
facts and the tools of analysis and are expected to apply them. The problem is the expectation of
the lecturer who often assumes that the intellectual light bulb will spark and the student will make
the intellectual leap to a justifiable solution. This is not the case. More often than not when asked
by students what diagnostic tools should they use the answer given becomes written in stone and
the student does not expand or explore additional or alternative applications. For example, students
will often use a SWOT analysis, filling in the segments but failing to give the rationale for their
inclusion. Moreover, the tool is static. In a sense they fail to appreciate the cause-effect-
performance-consequence relationships and the changes in strategic direction, consequence
relationships and the changes in strategic direction.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that business case studies have no definitive solution. Each
person will arrive at his or her solution based on the intellectual and experiential baggage that they
carry with them when trying to analyse a case study. As Saint Jean & Lapierre [Saint Jean &
Lapierre 1993] commented:
“One of the epistemological factors of the case method is the affirmation of the relativity of
knowledge… knowledge is relative…not only is knowledge relative, but the organisation is a highly
complex system where all components interact sensitive to the interrelationships.”
Learning by doing; increased familiarisation with the application of analytical techniques and
appreciation of their implications; exposure to a number and variety of cases and their solutions;
will help hone analytical ability. Likewise, exposure to peer group solution generation and lecturer
driven solutions will also enhance the learning process.

CRITICAL EVENT ANALYSIS

Students normally come to the case method fresh with little or no exposure to this form of
teaching and learning. Their first experiences can often be traumatic as they are confronted with
an unstructured body of work against which they have to bring some form of order by systematising
its component parts. From this process some form of prioritisation is attempted as the student tries
to rationalise the information he/she has before them. At this point the student is still engaged in