Best Practices for Writing Case Studies

Abstract

The main aim of this chapter is to provide the reader with knowledge about best practices in writing case studies. Case studies are now widely used in many areas of education. Our special focus of this chapter is on business case studies, specifically developed for business school students. Such cases were popularized by Harvard Business School, where this is the main form of teaching. However popular in the teaching process, writing case studies can post significant challenges, especially to first-time case writers. This chapter aims to address those challenges that may occur while developing a case study and to provide the reader knowledge about the best practices in writing case studies. The authors believe that this material can be useful for both experienced case study writers and those with no practice or prior experience. This chapter contains three sections. The first part is focused on the case study development process, covering four stages: strategic decisions, research, writing, testing and refining. The second section aims to present practical aspects of writing a good case study and best practices for case study content and the main elements of case study structure. The third section is focused on a teaching note in the case study development process. In the appendinx the authors present the checklist for developing a good case study that can be helpful tool in the development process.