The School’s Publisher Sold 12 Million Case Studies Last Year at 9–15 USD per Document.
Business schools like to claim that they operate innovatively, with in-house entrepreneur incubators and elective courses designed to stimulate thinking. Yet most rely on a teaching tool that has changed little in more than a century. To learn how to run a company, MBA students must read hundreds of case studies—strategic problems at real companies—and discuss ways to solve them.
For Harvard Business School (HBS), which created and popularized this method in the early 1990s, case studies have become a major revenue source. Harvard Business Publishing (HPB) says it sells materials to around 4,000 schools worldwide, accounting for 80% of the case studies used globally.
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A case analysis class at Harvard Business School. |
HBP is responsible for publishing business materials. According to the school's annual report, HBP earned USD 194 million last year, up 44% from 2010. The publisher does not specify case-study revenue, only that it sold 12 million copies last year at USD 9-15 per case. Schools receive discounts; companies and other organizations do not. Case sales even exceed book sales and Harvard Business Review subscriptions.
“The case-study method helps learners develop excellent reflexes and analytical skills for real situations,” said Robert Bruner, dean of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Some Harvard exercises may appear less complex than information on Wikipedia. However, Willis Emmons, director of Harvard's C. Roland Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning, explained: “Our cases are deliberately limited in the volume of analysis they contain. The challenge for students is to use both quantitative and qualitative information to understand them.”
HBP also sells teaching aids for instructors, such as keywords to write on the board. The huge publishing operation has helped HBS maintain its dominance in the case-study market. Darden Business Publishing considers itself second in the US, yet sold fewer than 700,000 copies in 2014, according to DBP Director Steve Momper.
Publishers are trying to diversify the content of these materials. In the 70s, the subjects ‘were almost exclusively men and were designed specifically for the US market,’ Bruner said. HBS is now trying to include cases reflecting a more modern, international business environment. It also plans to raise the proportion of cases featuring women to 20% and incorporate video and internet elements.
Among the top 25 business schools in the United States ranked by Bloomberg ranked last year, 19 said they used case studies as their primary teaching tool. At HBS, 80% of class time is devoted to this activity.
Hà Thu (according to Bloomberg)
Source: Vnexpress
