What Rare Cases Teach Students about Not-So-Rare Business Problems

While it can be tempting to teach cases on companies and events students are familiar with, an unexpected turn or a little-known company can create a much richer discussion, lead to new ways of thinking, and open students’ minds to businesses, fields, and problems they hadn’t previously considered.


“What we may deem as 'rare' or 'unique' is in fact often more common; it’s just that we haven't placed emphasis on it—and students are better served when we have cases that are more representative of the wide range of organizations and industries in which they will have jobs, or might be exploring themselves,” said Paul Beamish, Professor of International Business at Ivey Business School.


Rare but not so uncommon 

One of Beamish’s cases, Mink Farming and Covid-19, looks at the Danish government’s response to a Covid outbreak in mink farms, which led to a complete shutdown of their industry and an order for thirteen million mink to be killed, in what was later seen as an extreme overreaction.


“The reality is that this transference of diseases between humans and animals is well understood by those in health sciences. The information to make a measured decision was there. But this is what happens during a crisis. People sometimes overreact without any real knowledge of what's likely to happen,” he said. “And that doesn’t solve the problem.”


That case was the first in Ivey’s catalogue of more than 45,000 cases and other learning materials on zoonotic diseases, he said, noting that even before COVID, diseases that can be transferred between humans and animals were common and under certain conditions can have huge business impacts.


“We need to deal with cases that are about grand challenges and cases that deal with things that are much more common than we realize, to give us a protocol for how to deal with this kind of crisis,” Beamish said. 


“But it’s about more than crisis management, because by having students study examples from rarer events, these cases should leave them with a sense that when they don’t how to deal with something, there are others that do. There are in fact experts that you can relatively quickly seek out for information. And it’s also about getting people comfortable with the exceptional – and creating awareness that these things are not as rare as we think.”


Tumbling toward harmony

For Rob Austin, Professor of Information Systems at Ivey Business School and an affiliated faculty member at Harvard Medical School, a favourite case to discuss collaboration and managing teams is about the Medici String Quartet (Paul Robertson and the Medici String Quartet), a group of musicians who were together for 34 years. 


“It’s a case about how people work together and how we lead creative ensembles, but it's also about how one manages people who are extremely talented and know they're extremely talented,” he said, noting the quartet would play three new pieces a year because of how difficult these were to master.


“When you look at a string quartet as an example of collaborative work, collaborative creative work, you're looking at an example that is near the boundary of human experience,” Austin said. “This case asks what can we learn from watching the collaborative process stretched so much? And one of the things that comes out in the Medici String Quartet case is they have a lot of interpersonal strife.” 


While there’s an idea within business management that if employees are happy and working together harmoniously, outputs will improve, the case shows that the members of the string quartet “fight all the time, but their work outputs are some of the most harmonious things anyone has ever experienced. And that tests some of our common assumptions, as managers, about how we think we're supposed to be managing.” 


Cases like this, Austin added, also provide a blank canvas for students to explore solutions, because they’re not companies or industries they know as much about, so they don’t bring any pre-conceived notions or baggage into those discussions.


Room to grow

Rare events and little-known companies can also offer up a higher level of ambiguity and uncertainty, which is important when it comes to helping students question assumptions and broaden perspectives.


“Case writing (and teaching) is a powerful tool to get into controversial discussions that are important in business, and discuss conflicts between corporate values and social values, which are only getting worse with social media, AI, and the polarization of society across the world,” said Bertrand Guillotin, a professor international business and strategic management with the Fox School of Business at Temple University in Philadelphia.


“Cases that have different layers and no obvious answers are the most useful, since the workplace is increasingly complex, and when people need tools to diplomatically and respectfully enter difficult conversations, they can become part of the solution.”


It can also be a way for more diverse thinkers to feel comfortable getting into class discussions, since no idea is off the table when there’s no clear answer or previous knowledge about a company or event.


“When you think of a good movie or a good song, they involve something that you did not expect. And that can come from a company nobody’s heard of, but has lessons widely applicable to other businesses,” Guillotin said. “You want students to have something that really resonates.”


Austin added that a good case will transform students’ viewpoints during the discussion, which can have a powerful impact.


“With an obscure case, you’ll likely have more of an opportunity to do that because you're not crashing against people's already formed views about Apple, or Google, or Facebook.”


A selection of "Rare" Cases

Here are some other cases Austin, Beamish, and Guillotin say allow students to learn from rare events and lesser-known companies:


  • Mircom Technologies Ltd.: Responding To A Ransomware Attack: The privately-held Canadian company suffered a ransomware attack, where the attackers encrypted all of the company’s data, halting all business systems and processes that relied on information technology. When Austin has taught this case, which he co-wrote, the company’s two founders often joined his class for a video discussion of what they could have done differently.




  • Bavarian Nordic A/S: Yet Another COVID-19 Vaccine?: The small pharma company in Denmark received government funding to create a new Covid vaccine with longer protection, but faced enough obstacles to raise questions about whether the company should be going down this path at all.



Quick tips for finding lesser-known cases

For those interested in adding rare or obscure cases to their course calendar but unsure where to start, here are some tips on how to find those hidden gems:


  • Look for an interesting story that will engage students. That’s usually the starting point for Guillotin, who said it’s crucial to ensure students don’t see the same cases again and again. Once he identifies an appealing story, he looks for patterns to see whether the case’s teachings are applicable to other industries or other protagonists, and how it can help students understand a key concept or fill a gap in the curriculum. “It’s a different approach that saying, ‘Students want to talk about Amazon and Apple or Tesla, let's focus on those,’” he says. “That to me is not interesting because after two or three classes at the undergrad or grad level where everybody has been talking about Nike and Tesla, the students get bored – and that’s the last thing we want as educators.” 


  • Look deeper into the catalogue of authors you’ve enjoyed in the past. “If they’ve written one case that you like, the other cases that they write will likely be related topically in subject matter or themes,” said Austin. He also uses keyword search function within the Ivey catalogue to see what cases may be listed together, and whether there’s a thematic link that applies to the concept he’s trying to teach.


  • Rely on your colleagues and word of mouth. That’s how Austin came across a new Development Bank of Singapore case around how that bank was approaching generative AI, which was a much topical fit for one of his programs. “You hear things from colleagues, you compare notes, and when we're together at conferences, we may find ourselves discussing what we use in classes to get across certain learning objectives. In conversations like that, I've often come away with ideas about cases I should use.”


  • Look beyond best sellers. Resist the temptation to add yet another case about a global multinational to your reading list and instead think about what the lesson of the case is, and what value it added. “You want cases that have unusual context, but there's solid learning that goes with it,” said Beamish. “That combination is quite powerful. The students will think it’s so wild and unusual, but real – and that they should pay attention.”


Above, Austin said, keep in mind that there isn’t a single way to choose cases – but the goal is to use them to orchestrate people's perspectives and generate discussions.


“You may be able to learn a good bit from cases that are kind of average representatives of a common problem in an industry,” he said. “But I think you can also learn a lot from looking at extremes, things that may be less common, but really tested an idea that we have in management.”



Explore the cases mentioned in this article and many more by browsing the full Ivey Publishing Catalogue. Log in or create an account to download an inspection copy of any learning material.