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- Last Updated: Sep 24, 2024 3:15 PM
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7 Favorite Business Case Studies to Teach Undergrads—and Why
Explore more.
- Case Teaching
- Course Design
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FEATURED CASES
Chris and Alison Weston (A) , selected by Amy Wallis of Wake Forest University School of Business, United States
Cynthia Carroll at Anglo American (A) , selected by Mihran A. Aroian of McCombs College of Business, United States
Merck: Managing Vioxx (A) , selected by Johanna Glauber of IE University, Spain
Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service , selected by Joseph C. Miller of St. Ambrose University, United States
Swoon: Mixing Up the Perfect Marketing Cocktail , selected by Sheri L. Lambert of Fox School of Business, Temple University, United States
Tesla Motors: Financing Growth , selected by Oscar Melo-Vega Angeles of the University of Lima, Peru
Trader Joe’s , selected by Michael Roberto of Bryant University, United States
To understand how undergraduate educators use the case method and find out which cases they gravitate toward, we asked several experienced case instructors, “What is your favorite case to teach undergrads and why does it work particularly well with them?”
The cases they shared range in industry and topic—from mining to pharmaceuticals and finance to marketing—but all offer valuable learning for undergraduate students.
1. Chris and Alison Weston (A)
Chris and Alison Weston (A) is an exceptional tool to help undergraduate students grasp moral disengagement and its ethical implications. The Westons are characters that students identify with—a married couple seeking to have fulfilling, lucrative careers—which makes the case personal for them. By examining a real-world scenario and the slippery slope that the Westons found themselves on, students see how easy it is to begin practicing unethical behavior. Reading about the implications of the Westons’ actions also highlights the situation through multiple ethical lenses, driving home the importance of perspective-taking and critical-thinking skills.
Coupling this case with “ A Note on Moral Disengagement ”—which expertly explains Bandura’s work on the psychological elements of ethical decision-making—brings the concepts to life for students; they find it intriguing to identify moral disengagement mechanisms at work in the case and eye-opening to see how easily the Westons fall into predictable traps of their own making.
I like to divide the class into breakout groups so students can practice both anticipating and preventing moral disengagement, as well as intervening when they see it happening. This builds important skills for ethical leadership.
2. Cynthia Carroll at Anglo American (A)
This semester, I’m teaching undergraduate students minoring in business. Since it’s an overview course, I needed a case study that touches upon several different areas of management. My favorite case this semester is Cynthia Carroll at Anglo American (A) .
Located in South Africa, Anglo American is one of the largest mining companies in the world. The case opens with then-new (now former) CEO Cynthia Carroll learning about a fatality at one of the mining facilities. She finds the incident unacceptable and immediately closes the mine. The case is powerful—Carroll brings radical change to the organization not only in addressing worker safety but also in addressing the overall operations of an organization that employs more than 150,000 workers.
The case shows us how, despite opposition from all sides, Carroll transforms the operations of a large corporation in which worker fatality is accepted as a norm. How she engages with skeptical stakeholders and moves the mining workforce (where the illiteracy rate was 70 percent) to participate is a tremendous example of great leadership. The way she conceives her strategy is an uplifting story for undergraduates and how she improves the operational and financial performance of the company is inspiring. The opportunity to teach about leadership, organizational transformation, crisis management, changing organizational culture, and employee empowerment in one case is simply elegant.
3. Merck: Managing Vioxx (A)
When teaching cases to undergraduates, I encourage my students to put themselves in the shoes of the decision maker(s) and get their hands sweaty under the pressure. When students have less work experience, case discussions are fabulous for allowing them to apply frameworks in business decisions. Students directly experience the challenges and complexities, gaining hands-on skills for their future careers.
One of my favorite cases to teach is Merck: Managing Vioxx (A) . Students are explicitly asked to stand in the shoes of CEO Ray Gilmartin, who learns about potentially severe cardiovascular risks of the painkiller drug Vioxx. A great strength of the case is that information is presented step by step—through six supplements—simulating Ray Gilmartin’s decision situation. This setup and great supplementary video material make it an exceptionally strong case for undergraduate teaching.
4. Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service
When I teach marketing strategy to undergraduates, I like to ask the students, “Have you ever shopped at a store that felt like it was made for you, but then one day it just seemed like it sold out by becoming more mainstream?” The question elicits responses consisting of various clothing stores, restaurants, and so forth. When discussing their experiences, students often seem to suspect that the growth of a service business comes at the cost of the elements that initially drew a core group of dedicated customers.
I find that students love giving definition to marketing phenomena they’ve actually experienced and they love talking about the products and services they use. For that reason, the case Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service is a favorite of mine to introduce to strategy undergrads.
Today’s students are interested in understanding the kind of service organization Starbucks was at its onset. They are interested in knowing who Starbucks’s initial core customers are and eager to discuss Starbucks’ growth intentions in the 90s and early 2000s, as well as how it coincided with changes to the external social environment.
As a coda, I often call upon the students’ experiences with today’s Starbucks. We discuss how the company has learned to bifurcate its operation to appeal to the service-intensive core consumer as well as the product-intensive casual consumer. It’s a great case to explain the pitfalls of the wheel of retailing to undergraduates.
5. Swoon: Mixing Up the Perfect Marketing Cocktail
There are several cases that I love to use for my marketing strategy capstone course with undergraduates. One of those is Swoon: Mixing Up the Perfect Marketing Cocktail , which centers around a nimble beverage startup. Students put themselves in the shoes of the two cofounders to design a marketing strategy for branding.
Many times, I’ve had students approach me wondering, “Why don’t any of the protagonists look like me?” The Swoon case is perfect: The cofounders are young women and many of my students can relate to them or see themselves in the protagonists. The case also comes with a “meet the protagonist” video, which immerses the students in a conversation between the two founders.
Two other cases I love to use, Opera Philadelphia: Segmentation Strategies for Changing Markets and Hamilton Won More Than Twitter , deal with non-traditional businesses (an opera company and a Broadway show). Students love interacting with these cases and applying marketing theory to the arts. On top of that, the Opera Philadelphia case enables students to roll up their sleeves, analyze consumer data, and formulate a plan forward.
It is all about engagement. Teaching concepts through these cases gets our students fully engaged.
6. Tesla Motors: Financing Growth
I use several cases for my undergraduate classes. My favorite one now is Tesla Motors: Financing Growth . This case can be applied to intermediate finance courses and can be used at many levels: undergraduate, MBA, and executive education. It is also specifically perfect to use in the Financial Management in International Business course, an undergraduate course in the Faculty of Business and Economics department at the University of Lima.
These are the main reasons I love teaching with it:
It is stimulating and provocative for students. They get excited about the numbers and the discussion. It incites them to participate, explain their assumptions, and compare their answers.
The company is trending and students around the world know about it; the case provides new information on a company they know. It is also great for discussing the impact of sustainability in company valuations.
It provides the opportunity to apply various finance learnings, including the shifting price of the company and shares according to valuation method, the value stock and growth stock and why investors pay more or less for it, equity financing, comparison with the market’s price, and companies with negative profit and positive value.
I can link the concepts back to other core curriculum readings I use for the course, including Financial Accounting Reading: Introduction to Valuation and Finance Reading: Cost of Capital .
It uses simple but technical language. And while it involves many numbers, and it can be discussed in a 90-minute class.
7. Trader Joe’s
WEBINAR: USING ACTIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES WITH UNDERGRADS
For more about using active learning strategies with undergrads, watch the recording of a recent HBP webinar with Michael Roberto, Trustee Professor of Management at Bryant University. In the webinar, Why Undergraduate Students (and Faculty) Struggle with Active Learning , Roberto speaks to the challenges faculty face and recommends strategies to address those problems.
Trader Joe’s is a highly successful firm in a very challenging industry, so the case provides a great platform for exploring many concepts in competitive strategy. Moreover, the company seems to be executing a rather counterintuitive strategy, forgoing many of the services and offerings that rivals consider essential in the supermarket business. That sparks the interest of inquisitive undergraduates.
SHARE WITH US Do you have a favorite case to teach your undergraduate students? We would love to hear about it!
To find other great cases to teach undergrads, check out this collection of Engaging Cases for Undergraduate Students or browse best-selling undergraduate cases by discipline .
Amy Wallis is a full teaching professor at the Wake Forest University School of Business. As an organizational development leader and academic professional, Wallis’s teaching and expertise are in leadership, ethics, organizational behavior, team development, and change management.
Mihran A. Aroian is an assistant professor of instruction in the department of management at McCombs College of Business, University of Texas at Austin. He is a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and has an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.
Johanna Glauber is an assistant professor in the strategy department at IE University. Her research focuses on firms’ strategy and behavior in case of failure. Having a background in management and mechanical engineering, Glauber is particularly interested in product failures in manufacturing industries, such as product recalls in the automotive industry. She also is an active member of the international research community.
Joseph C. Miller is professor and chair of the marketing and sales departments at St. Ambrose University.
Sheri L. Lambert is an associate professor of practice in the department of marketing at Temple University’s Fox School of Business where she teaches marketing strategy, digital innovation in marketing, and consumer buyer behavior at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive levels. Lambert is also academic director of the MS-Market Research Program and managing director of the Fox Center for Executive Education.
Oscar Melo-Vega Angeles is an associate professor of finance, a researcher, and the international financing area coordinator at the University of Lima. He is also responsible for the University of London program at the University of Lima. Melo-Vega has experience in researching and consulting in economics and finance. He has used cases in undergraduate classes for 15 years.
Michael Roberto is the Trustee Professor of Management and the director of the Center for Program Innovation at Bryant University. He joined the tenured faculty at Bryant after serving for six years on the faculty at Harvard Business School.
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