Knowledge Acquisition Through Case Study Development: A Student Researcher Perspective

Educators are increasingly incorporating the development of research case studies as a course assignment in graduate and executive degree courses. Each student (or student group) develops a research case study that provides theory-based explanation and discussion of how a real organization managed a business issue related to the course. In the process, the student gains a deeper understanding of business theories and their applications as well as current business issues and their interactions with internal and external organizational forces. While a significant amount of literature is written on developing case studies for full-time academic researchers, little is done to provide guidelines to student researchers, who face unique issues and constraints in this research-based learning process. This paper introduces case study research method and offers a roadmap to student researchers.