Strategic Management Case analysis outline

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GUIDE TO CASE ANALYSIS[footnoteRef:1] [1: Adapted from http://udel.edu/~mck/BUAD870/870guide.htm. Retreived on 1/16/15.]

Some cases will describe a situation and leave you at the point where the main character in the case is contemplating some action or future event. Other cases will report on some action which has occurred in the past and inform you of the results. In either case, you should analyze the current situation, determining what has led up to the point at which the case leaves you, then consider future actions.

The goal of case analysis is not to develop a set of "correct" facts, but to learn to reason well with available data. Cases mirror the uncertainty of the real world managerial environment in that the information presented is often imprecise and ambiguous. There may be a number of feasible strategies that the manager or management group might adopt, each with somewhat different implications for the future of the organization and each involving different trade-offs. Although there is no "perfect" solution, there are alternatives that will lead to better overall outcomes than others. Part of your job is to make sure that you consider as many alternatives as possible, weigh their pros and cons, and determine which alternative provides the most benefit with the least cost.

In developing your position, place yourself at the time of the case with the dilemma or the challenge as it faced the organization at that time. Where you have the benefit of hindsight, subsequent knowledge, or added research, this should be acknowledged. The content of your analysis should be organized as follows (YOU SHOULD USE THESE SUBHEADINGS IN YOUR CASE WRITE-UPS):

Problem Statement

The case analysis should begin with a very brief description of the background and key players in the scenario. This description provides a context for the problem. In the remaining paragraphs, you should describe the problem, trying to be as succinct as possible. Your description should include consequences/potential consequences of the problem and a statement to convince the reader why this problem is important, particularly from the perspective of the organization.

In addition to identifying the core problem in the case, you should also identify the primary issues that compound the problem. These issues generally reflect complicating factors that make it difficult to come up with an easy solution to the core problem, and provide the focus for the analysis to follow.

Analysis of Issues

In this section, you should use information presented in the case and concepts, theories, and/or past empirical research reported in the management and organizational behavior literature to understand why the problems and issues have developed and why they are important. The analysis of each issue should be developed to provide the necessary background to lead to defining one or more reasonable alternative solutions to the problem.

Some Helpful Hints:

· Use concepts, theories, and/or empirical evidence reported in the management literature (our text and assigned readings) to provide a framework for your analysis and support for your conclusions.

· Take care to use terms/concepts appropriately and precisely.

· Base your analysis on facts and do not try to place blame.

· Be careful not to make assumptions that cannot be supported by the facts in the case.

Again, please rely heavily on the concepts and models presented in the text and your readings. This will be important in grading your case analysis. The readings for this class represent the knowledge base for understanding what is happening in the case. The purpose of using cases to learn organizational behavior is to exercise your ability to apply this common knowledge base to organizational problems. If you do not explicitly state how you are applying this knowledge, I have no way of knowing how well you are learning it.

Recommended Actions:

Here you must be decisive. Your recommended actions will evolve out of your analysis of the issues in the case. You must decide what should be done (or what should have been done). Be very clear on why you have chosen this action. Justify your decisionwith facts from the case and concepts, models, and/or findings from the text and readings. Defend your recommendations with sound analyses and reasoning that recognizes both the pros and cons of the alternatives you choose.