A640.7.3.RB – HOW TO ANSWER CASE SUDY QUESTIONS

The Explorable website defined case study as an in-depth research or study of a detailed story or rather than a survey that is based on statistics.  A case study can be built in a real situation or problem where some portions of the story can be disguised as to prevent public exposure or simply for privacy reasons.  A case study describes and introduces a business or an industry’s account over the years, chronicling a leader’s methods of responding to a situation that generally implicates changing a corporate level strategy.  A case study is developed for educational purposes to give students practice to carefully consider, assess, and examine a real or makeshift business scenario that requires determination to solve a business problem or issue.

Through this course, by responding to different case studies my research skills have certainly been improved and enhanced.  I have learned the value of doing further research about the given company or organization via the internet, in addition to reading the case studies thoroughly before replying to the problems or situations.  My critical thinking skills have also played a significant role in my case study responses.  Although I have been quite successful in responding to the issues presented in the different case studies that were given to us through this course, there are a couple of elements that I wish I could have incorporated into the narratives of my responses.

I have noticed that my responses were not synced to the current position I have or to the current organization I am employed with.  It would have been more ideal if I had presented my recommended solutions in a bigger picture climate like connecting them to a real-world story and how the solutions were syncing together to solve the given problem.  My suggested solutions to the situations could have been more reliable if I could have further backed-up my solutions through internal and external data validation.  I could also have considered the audience or readers’ perception or understanding regarding the recommended resolutions i.e. are they seeing the benefits or value of the solutions to them or their company. 

I can relate to King, J.’s (n.d.) claim that it is important to become familiar with the nature and the meaning of the overall study question by reading through the case study even for more than one reading if necessary.  Based on my experience responding to the case studies from MSLD 640 class, I have slowly read the case study once or twice to be able to understand the story and the question thoroughly and concisely.  Thinking of different avenues to solve given problems and to determine the impact of every response to the outcome also helped me considerably.  Another recommendation from King (n.d.) that I have actually used through this course was visualizing the situation described in the case study.  I literally placed or imagined myself as the individual who needed to make the decisions and how would those decisions actually affect the members of my team or my entire organization.  Also, finding resolutions to the easiest posed problem worked very well most especially when I found myself stuck on a particular issue and I can’t seem to move passed it.  It was indeed a confidence booster.  Therefore, I agree that King’s (n.d.) claim from her article entitled How to Answer Case Study Questions has its valid points.

Reflecting on the progress and the lessons learned in responding to the case studies presented in this entire course, I can say that for future purposes when presented with a situation that requires resolution, identifying the authenticity of the facts that encompasses the case or situation is of utmost importance to define the primary issue.  Through the identification of the fundamental problem, it would help me to demonstrate how the problem or issue affects the organization’s performance or its business strategy.  Also, I have learned that identifying alternative courses of action and evaluating the risks and rewards of every course of action will also be of importance in responding to future case studies.  Lastly, when I recommend the best course of action, I will give a more detailed rationale of the “why” behind my final recommendation as well as the “why” behind the reason other alternatives were not chosen.  Overall, I need to communicate that with every course of action we may decide to take, each option that we agree upon will most likely have its benefits or rewards and unfortunately, have risks.

References:

Case Study Research Design. Retrieved from: https://explorable.com/case-study-research-design

King, Juanita (n.d.). How to Answer Case Study Questions. Retrieved from: http://www.ehow.com/how_8342765_answer-case-study-questions.html