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Approach to Case Study

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A case study is a description of an actual administrative situation involving a decision to be made or a problem to be solved. It can be a real situation that actually happened just as described, or portions have been disguised for reasons of privacy. Most case studies are written in such a way that the reader takes the place of the manager whose responsibility is to make decisions to help solve the problem. In almost all case studies, a decision must be made, although that decision might be to leave the situation as it is and do nothing.

Answering A Case Study

It helps to have a system when sitting down to answer a case study as the amount of information and issues to be resolved can initially seem quite overwhelming. The …show more content…

Some issues may appear to be urgent, but upon closer examination are relatively unimportant, while others may be far more important (relative to solving our problem) than urgent. You want to deal with important issues in order of urgency. Important issues are those that have a significant effect on:
1. profitability,
2. strategic direction of the company,
3. source of competitive advantage,
4. morale of the company 's employees, and/or
5. customer satisfaction.
The problem statement may be framed as a question, e.g.: What should Joe do? or How can Mr. Smith improve market share?

Analyzing Case Data

In analyzing the case data, you are trying to answer the following:
1. Why or how did these issues arise? You are trying to determine cause and effect for the problems identified. It may be helpful to think of the organization in question as consisting of the following components:
1. resources, such as materials, equipment, or supplies, and
2. people who transform these resources using
3. processes, which creates something of greater value.
2. Who is affected most by this issues? You are trying to identify who are the relevant stakeholders to the situation, and who will be affected by the decisions to be made.
3. What are the constraints and opportunities implicit to this situation? It is very rare that resources are not a constraint, and allocations must be made on the assumption that not enough will be available to please

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