Writing case studies for teaching purposes

Dr Wong speaking on the approaches used for writing case studies

The Centre for Accounting, Banking and Finance (CABF) under the Faculty of Business and Finance (FBF) organised a talk on 24 August 2016 titled “How to write case studies for teaching purposes?” by FBF Lecturer and Chartered Management Accountant Dr Wong Kee Luen at the Kampar Campus.

Participants, which consisted of FBF academics, benefitted enormously from the information and knowledge relating to writing case studies for their teaching. It was understood that many lecturers have been using case studies in their classes and found it to be an effective teaching aid to help students better understand the subjects.

Dr Wong likewise underscored the importance of using case studies in business studies. He began by explaining the use of case studies being popularised by Harvard University as a teaching method and by the American Social Scientist Robert K. Yin as a qualitative research method in 1984. Due to the limitations of quantitative methods, Dr Wong explained that the case study research method is able to provide holistic and in-depth explanations on social and behavioural problems and thus became a widely accepted method for teaching and research.

Further expounding on the writing of case studies, Dr Wong firstly introduced the Harvard approach used for writing case studies. He elucidated that the Harvard approach requires the cases to be investigated based on real organisations and are then written by the respective professors. However, he advised participants of the need for the cases to be approved by the host organisation before it can be used for teaching. Participants learned that the information gathering process on site will take two to four days and is collected from the organisation’s memos, reports and industry studies.

The second approach was the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) approach, which involves two sections, namely the pre-seen section and the unseen section. Dr Wong spoke of the pre-seen section containing general information about the industry and the organisation. The unseen section, on the other hand, was explained as the section containing issues that needed to be addressed and usually consist of six issues — four operational issues and two ethical issues. Thus, writer are required to write various issues utilising relevant information and data gathered on the organisation.

The talk continued with participants being informed of the various stages involved when writing their case studies. The beginning is to determine the purpose of the case being chosen for the writing, because case studies used for teaching or assessment require different writing styles. Once the purpose is determined, participants will be required to gather as much information on the organisation’s case, which forms into a collated story.

Due to legal consequences, Dr Wong cautioned participants to have their written case studies reviewed and approved by the host organisation before use. For case studies meant for teaching, Dr Wong mentioned that teaching notes should be prepared as well.

The talk ended with an interactive Q&A session.