case studies

[kaysixteen]

A few years back I took out a Teaching Company course on 'The Art of Critical Decision Making', taught by a Harvard-trained 'Doctor of Business Administration', who is a distinguished business prof at a third, maybe fourth-tier private univ in New England.   The bio the announcer gave on the dude was extremely impressive, with numerous teaching awards both at Harvard and then at his current school, extensive publications, and a wide variety of distinguished consulting gigs at various businesses and govt agencies.  The course is two parts, and I listened to the first part back then (2020), and recall not being impressed enough to bother checking out the conclusion.  Truth be told, I forgot about it.... which meant that I just ordered it again from the libes, not initially recognizing that it was the same one I had listened to then.   But I am reading and listening to a wide variety of works on critical thinking, fallacies, etc., nowadays, and I checked it out eagerly.  Having realized I had already listened to the first part, I set to work tonight on part II... and, well, I am still rather decidedly underwhelmed.   My problem is the use of case studies, the endless (IMO) rather pseudoscientific b-school-style jargon, and what seems to me to be a rather low-level of objective, humanities-style scholarship.   So my question here would be: am I wrong?   Are business schools, chock-full of 'doctors of business administration', really serious places of scholarship?

[Sun_Worshiper]

Tenured and tenure track folks at b-schools typically don't have DBAs, but rather PhDs. By and large, these folks do "serious" research in the sense that they are publishing in peer reviewed academic journals and using the same sorts of methods as sociologists, economists, and other social scientists. 

Some also write case studies along the lines of what you describe, which usually focus on a company faced with some challenge. Those are sold to students through case series like Harvard Business Publishing and used for teaching.

[dismalist]

Case studies are a type of pedagogy. Digest lots of them, even trivial seeming cases. One learns by induction on account no one wishes to commit exclusively to a theory.  The method was of course borrowed from law schools.

There are theories of business enterprise and even law, but that's not what B-schools wish to commit to completely. On account: You never know what the future will bring!

[kaysixteen]

Ok, but this guy is a distinguished full prof (or at least was such in 2009 when the course was taped)-- his uni is of course far from Harvard, an at best 3rd tier New England uni (though apparently the biz school is better than arts and sciences there). 

Now I am wondering something about this biz-school class, a class that is laden with b-school buzzwords and what to my ears is rather pretentious/ pseudoscientific thinking: is this an accurate (generalized) impression of such programs, or is it me being too dumb to appreciate it?

[dismalist]

Ok, but this guy is a distinguished full prof (or at least was such in 2009 when the course was taped)-- his uni is of course far from Harvard, an at best 3rd tier New England uni (though apparently the biz school is better than arts and sciences there). 

Now I am wondering something about this biz-school class, a class that is laden with b-school buzzwords and what to my ears is rather pretentious/ pseudoscientific thinking: is this an accurate (generalized) impression of such programs, or is it me being too dumb to appreciate it?

You're fine, K-16. B-school is mostly bullshit. The useful stuff can be taught and learned in high school, perhaps with an apprenticeship afterwards. The method of case studies does not speak against B-school -- the content does.

[Katrina Gulliver]

The point of Business school is networking.

[kaysixteen]

I get the networking part, but this prof's school, which I will say is Bryant Univ. in RI, ain't Harvard-- exactly how much lucrative networking opps are available even to MBA students there, let alone undergrads?

BTW, this man himself does have the DBA from Harvard Business School-- does HBS not actually award a PhD?

[Sun_Worshiper]

Many R1 business schools offer a PhD, which is usually more for people who want to be academics, and also a DBA, which is for working professionals that would gain some upward mobility in the corporate world with a doctorate. Once in a while someone from the latter group ends up teaching in a business school although usually not on the tenure track. If this guy is tenured at Bryant University, he could conceivably have gotten their via a DBA from HBS, which could carry enough cache to land someone at a place like Bryant. From there, he probably got tenure on the basis of some research that might not fly in R1 world, but which could do the trick at a place like that.

And business school is for networking in part, but it is also a place where students take real classes in things like marketing, finance, and corporate strategy.

[kaysixteen]

I do not know where he is now, but in 2009 he was not only tenured, but had some sort of endowed chair.

They may well have hired him because he was a Harvardian.

I am still wondering-- perhaps it is the cynic in me-- would a business degree, Bachelor or Master, from a place like Bryant, open real serious business doors?

[financeguy]

Case studies are used in a lot of business school environments. They don't hold the same type of value as in law school since the cases are often selected because they set precedent and thus become case law. In business (and in personal financial planning, for example) case studies are useful in getting people out of the silo of a given specific narrow field and start to think about an integrated whole involving tradeoffs among multiple areas. You have to see the big picture and acknowledge competing interests. People who focus on a narrow area tend to overvalue specialized knowledge. Thomas Sowell actually bases a large part of the premise of his book Intellectuals and Society on the premium placed on specialized vs consequential knowledge. (If it requires specialization, it must "matter" more than it actually does.)

In general business education is practical in nature. Your opinion of the value of the scholar's performance there is not irrelevant, but it is just as relevant as a business school professor judging the success of a humanities program on average starting salary of graduates.

There is some value but not much to having "an M.B.A." Many believe you should go to the top tier or not go. That said, there are some jobs for which it is a box to check and having one from a lesser-known program will check the box as well. Early on in one's career brand matters a lot more. Later in life (when many attain the degree) it's one of a few things that are being considered. Is having a Wharton MBA better than having one from Mississippi? Sure. If the Wharton guy and Mississippi guy are both up for the same job when both are 45 and the Wharton guy's current job isn't as close a fit as the Mississippi guy's, he may not have an advantage.

I know several people who would simply flat out refuse to hire in an academic environment the lower program grad if a UPenn alum in their field were a finalist regardless of fit, even much later in career long after graduation. Other factors are lesser priority. Those in the biz world might assume the Mississippi literature Ph.D. with years of VAP and adjunct work is "more experienced" than an ABD UPenn applicant and would be surprised that the latter is hired. Brand and experience both "matter" in either context, but to wildly different degrees.

[Ruralguy]

Also, Bryant is respected regionally, though of course it lives in a sea of nearby prominent schools.

[MarathonRunner]

Some of the most prestigious, most competitive, and most sought-after health care programs in Canada, at least, use case based learning and problem based learning as a significant portion of their courses. As a future health care professional, completing case based assignments will mirror what is seen in practice when one eventually enters practice. Cases are typically completed in teams, so also mirror the reality of healthcare, where most (not all, obviously) work in teams.

No idea about business, as that's not my field, but in health, case based and problem based learning are increasingly used and have been shown, in some research studies, to be superior for learning and retention, compared to traditional methods.

[secundem_artem]

Some of the most prestigious, most competitive, and most sought-after health care programs in Canada, at least, use case based learning and problem based learning as a significant portion of their courses. As a future health care professional, completing case based assignments will mirror what is seen in practice when one eventually enters practice. Cases are typically completed in teams, so also mirror the reality of healthcare, where most (not all, obviously) work in teams.

No idea about business, as that's not my field, but in health, case based and problem based learning are increasingly used and have been shown, in some research studies, to be superior for learning and retention, compared to traditional methods.

This.

Health care professional education uses cases extensively - both for teaching and assessment.  Cases require students to sort the signal from the noise by picking out the relevant bits of information, putting them in order, and then using that data to determine what is the best course of action - which med to prescribe, which test to order etc.  Good cases can be quite useful to help develop critical thinking skills - e.g. when fixing one problem in a complicated case makes another problem worse.

[financeguy]

I'm not in health but managing multiple medications at once as opposed to reading instructions for one is the example I give of why professionals are needed in a variety of fields. (The trade offs rather than yes/no decisions.)

[kaysixteen]

Interestingly, since Bryant is an expensive private school, one cannot say one went there, as opposed to a higher-rated private uni, for one's MBA, in order to save money.   It is also the case that the students will doubtless therefore, taken as a whole, be less academically impressive than higher rated places, esp top tier ones, and given that, the quality of the instruction will have to be lowered, in teh sense that the standards a professor will have to employ must needs be lowered, unless he wants to see a heavy flunk-out rate, which I am sure the uni just does not want.