Implementing Harvard Business School’s case method in distributed environments
Adam Mendelson
February, 2006
Occasional Papers
English
Publications / IESE
This paper presents a discussion of IESE Business School’s use of case method teaching in the distributed learning part of its Global Executive MBA program. The paper starts with a basic replication in which physical spaces (classrooms and meeting rooms) are replaced by online communication tools (asynchronous message boards). Because such distributed implementation has the potential to produce unmanageable quantities of messages, this paper proposes both IT-based and instructional design-based interventions to address this issue. Additionally, the paper examines three possible advantages of distributed implementation over face-to-face implementation: greater student diversity and professional experience, greater depth of discussion, and possibility of using digital and multimedia materials to complement the discussion. The paper provides a detailed example of one specific implementation and closes with questions for future research.