Page 18 - General Cases 1

‘This is your wife’, or

‘This is your wife’ or

‘This is YOUR wife’, or

‘This is your WIFE’.

It may simply be that a good case writer is adept at

developing the art of building ‘creative ambiguity’ thereby
testing the ability of the user to solve a case study. This in

itself would mean the user had to read, visualize, realize and

analyze the material then think about alternatives through

asking: what went wrong? why did it happen? what is to be
done? what should have been done?

Structure of a Case

The purpose of the case study analysis is to help bridge the

gap between classroom learning and real-life practice. Case
studies provide an opportunity to develop, sharpen, and test

analytical skills. To this end both long and short cases fulfill

this function as long as the parameters of what is aimed at

are set out and understood in the case’s use and
development.

Case study development is essentially the growth and telling

of a story but one coloured by the focus the author takes. It

is contended here that simply put, a long case study tends

to have a fuzzy focus whilst it is more probable that a short

case study has a greater clarity of focus.