International Business Education at the Interface: The Raw Case Study Method

ABSTRACT

Borrowing from Yale School of Management, we call this new approach the raw case method of learning. Unlike a traditional case study, a raw case is not confined in print or pages of a narrative about a challenging international business situation. It is an open, real-time information space through which case study students may wander. But it also comes with a specific and demanding assignment that requires students to discover, evaluate, analyze, decide, and communicate. This is indeed how managerial decisions are made in the real world of international business. It is more difficult today when the impact of business must be understood and managed against the backdrop of the changing global political, economic, social and technological landscape. It is also, in our view, geared to transformational management education that coincides with the shared aspiration for our profession, as outlined in the new AACSB Vision (www.aacsb.edu/vision/infographic). In this paper, we introduce the raw case method of learning, make a case for its adoption in international business education, and discuss several implementation issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Raw case
• complex problems
• experiential learning

Acknowledgments

We express our gratitude toward our students and colleagues for their participation in this experiment with the new pedagogy. We acknowledge the financial support from Middlebury Institute of International Studies, which made team teaching possible. We are also grateful to Yale School of Management and Aspen Institute for allowing us to use their raw cases.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ This is a finding of the Boston Consulting Group that is discussed in the Auto Alliance. Website accessed January 1, 2017: http://www.autoalliance.org/auto-innovation/autos-most-innovative-companies.

² In fact, when running our case courses, we offer “pre-case” sessions to review standard business techniques such as firm valuation, portfolio construction, etc., only to sometimes discover that the raw case we are analyzing neither fits nor are the tools applicable to the problem at hand.

³ For a concise description of the evolution of trade liberalization in the U.S. please see: I.M. Destler, “America’s Uneasy History with Free Trade”, Harvard Business Review, April 28^th, 2016.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yuwei Shi

Yuwei Shi is professor of strategic management at the Middlebury Institute. His research and practice interests center on competitive strategy, business model and organizational design, particularly for social ventures and impact investing. An award-winning teacher widely known for innovative pedagogy, course and program design, he is a pioneer in raw-case method of learning. Dr. Shi has led the development and successful launch of impactful programs including the Frontier Market Scouts Fellowship Program and the Blue Pioneers Accelerator Program. Dr. Shi earned his B.E. degree from Shanghai Jiaotong University, M.C.L. from the Dedmen School of Law at Southern Methodist University, and Ph.D. in Organization, Strategy and International Management from the Naveen Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Sandra Dow

Sandra Dow is the Grover Hermann Professor of International Business at the Middlebury Institute. She is Chair of the Fisher MBA in Global Impact Management and has teaching and research interests in corporate governance and  ESG risk management. Her contribution to pedagogy was recently recognized by Middlebury with the Institute-wide teaching award. Dr. Dow holds a PhD in finance from Concordia University in Montreal.