Rational, Human, Political, and Symbolic Text in Harvard Business School Cases: A Study of Structure and Content

Abstract

Critics of the case method have argued that cases too frequently overempha-size the formal and rational aspects of organizational functioning. Responding to these concerns, Harvard Business School (HBS) announced a commitment to broaden case content. In this study, narrative analysis is used to investigate the content of the 36 most popular HBS cases of 1996. It reveals that these cases continue to reflect the rational domain bias that engendered the original criticism. The authors provide guidance to both case users and writers through the identification of four perceptual hazards (metathemes) that characterize the rationality bias.