Columbia CaseWorks
Professor Stephen Zeldes, the Academic Director, spearheaded the 2007 launch of Columbia Business School’s CaseWorks initiative. Columbia CaseWorks supports the development of teaching materials closely tied to and based on the research and expertise of Columbia’s world-class faculty. Columbia CaseWorks provides funding and staff support for the development of new cases and teaching materials.
Columbia CaseWorks currently focuses on three main formats:
- Conventional story cases that present a business issue or decision as well as the background necessary to analyze the decision.
- Decision briefs, new-style cases providing less structured information similar to what students will encounter in the real world.
- Research briefs that delineate what “state-of-the-art” research says about an important practical business issue or question. These briefs will help students understand and appreciate the insights and practical relevance of faculty research.
All teaching materials are oriented around real world questions and decisions and challenge students to make sense of varied sources of information. Some will be multimedia cases presented in an interactive, Web-based environment.
CaseWorks made its debut at the beginning of the Fall 2007 term, during which entering students — for the first time ever — used only Columbia cases in the Orientation program. These students went on to see additional Columbia cases used in a variety of their core courses. Columbia CaseWorks is continuing its efforts to develop new cases for both core and elective courses. For more information about the Caseworks collection, please refer to the case abstracts.
