Business and Administration

A case study is a detailed study of a specific subject, such as a person, group, place, event, organization, or phenomenon. Case studies are commonly used in social, educational, clinical, and business research.

Case studies are normally introduced in a classroom setting  where students analyze a detailed real-life scenario (the "case") presented by the teacher, often involving a problem or dilemma, to apply theoretical concepts and develop critical thinking skills by discussing potential solutions and considering different perspectives, usually in group discussions, with the goal of learning through active engagement rather than just passively receiving information; it encourages students to think critically, make decisions, and justify their reasoning based on the presented situation.

Case studies are good for describing, comparing, evaluating and understanding different aspects of a research problem, and may be developed by instructors as well as students in research or competitions. A case study research design usually involves qualitative methods, but quantitative methods are sometimes also used.

Harvard Business Publishing has over 32,000 cases available in its database. Harvard Business Cases are not made available for license or purchase by academic libraries. Generally UW Business Administration instructors/professors can register for a free educator account with Harvard Business Publishing Education to review and select cases for course, and then arrange to have them made available for purchase in electronic course packages for use in classes. Students can register for access to cases provided in course packs selected by their instructor for their course.

Ivey Business School at Western University Case Studies - Ivey faculty and case writers work on the ground in locations around the world, conducting in-person interviews with the principals in the case to gain a personal sense of the local context.  Ivey's active collection includes over 7,000 cases and supplemental cases, and over 690 Ivey Business Journal articles. The Ivey case collection has cases involving nearly 100 distinct countries. There are particularly large collections regarding North America, China, India, the rest of Asia, United Kingdom, European Union countries, and South Africa.  In addition, there are over 2,650 case translations. Ivey is the second largest producer of management case studies in the world.

Ivey Business Cases are not made available to Libraries. Generally UW Business Administration instructors/professors can register for an account with Ivey Publishing to review and select cases for course, and then arrange to have them made available for purchase in print or electronic course packages for use in classes. Ivey Publishing, however, does have a number of free business cases that will be discounted 100% at checkout.

Available from the Purdy-Crawford Chair in Aboriginal Business Studies at Cape Breton University, the cases are freely available for educational use – there is no need to purchase or license them individually for students.

Case Research Journal - The Case Research Journal is published by the North American Case Research Association (NACRA). The CRJ is the leading academic journal for cases in business and related disciplines in North America. The Case Research Journal publishes outstanding field-research-based, decision focused teaching cases drawn from research in real organizations, dealing with issues in all administration-related disciplines. Occasionally, the Journal publishes papers concerning case research, case writing or case teaching. All manuscripts are double-blind refereed by Editorial Board members and ad hoc reviewers in the appropriate discipline. The journal publishes four issues a year and has an acceptance rate of approximately 20 percent. In addition to appearing in a print version of the journal, cases published in the CRJ are distributed online through our publishing partners, including Harvard Business School Press, Ivey, The Case Centre and McGraw-Hill, among others.

Case Research Journal is available in our print journal collection only - https://uwinnipeg.on.worldcat.org/oclc/6955103.

Due to copyright, licensing and access restrictions, the large collections of business cases provided by Harvard Business Publishing, Ivey Business School, and other scholarly publishers like Sage, McGraw Hill, and Pearson, are not generally available to academic libraries, including the University of Winnipeg Library.

This search provides access to a number of books and other publications in the UW Library for case studies for business:

su: Case studies AND (business OR management)

su: Case studies AND (business OR management) AND (pb:Springer OR pb:Macmillan)

su: Case studies AND (business OR management) AND (pb:Routledge OR pb:Taylor)

su: Case studies AND (business OR management) AND pb:Sage

su: Case studies AND (business OR management) AND pb:Wiley

su: Case studies AND (business OR management) AND pb:Elsevier 

Note: these cases may or may not be complete cases nor include instructors notes or solutions. Instructors should also consult with the Campus Copyright Office before making these cases available to students for classroom study.