...PART ONE • UNDERSTANDING SERVICES SERVICES IN THE MODERN ECONOMY As consumers, we use services every day. Turning on a light, watching TV, talking on the telephone, riding a bus, visiting the dentist, mailing a letter, getting a haircut, refueling a car, writing a check, or sending clothes to the cleaners are all examples of service consumption at the individual level. T h e institution at which you are studying is itself a c o m p l e x service organization. In addition to educational services, today's college facilities usually include libraries and cafeterias, counseling, a bookstore, placement offices, copy services, telecommunications, and even a bank. If you are enrolled at a residential university, campus services are also likely to include dormitories, health care, indoor and o u t d o o r athletic facilities, a theater, and perhaps a post office. Customers are not always happy with the quality and value of the services they receive. People complain a b o u t late deliveries, r u d e or i n c o m p e t e n t personnel, i n c o n v e n i e n t service h o u r s , p o o r p e r f o r m a n c e , and needlessly complicated p r o cedures. T h e y grumble about the difficulty of finding sales clerks to help t h e m in retail stores, express frustration about mistakes on their credit card bills or bank statements, shake their heads over the complexity of new self-service equipment, m u t ter about p o o r value, and sigh as they are forced to wait in line almost everywhere...
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...lecture-based teaching where student participation in the classroom is minimal, the case method is an active learning method, which requires participation and involvement from the student in the classroom. For students who have been exposed only to the traditional teaching methods, this calls for a major change in their approach to learning. This introduction is intended to provide students with some basic information about the case method, and guidelines about what they must do to gain the maximum benefit from the method. We begin by taking a brief look at what case studies are, and how they are used in the classroom. Then we discuss what the student needs to do to prepare for a class, and what she can expect during the case discussion. We also explain how student performance is evaluated in a case study based course. Finally, we describe the benefits a student of management can expect to gain through the use of the case method. WHAT IS A CASE STUDY? There is no universally accepted definition for a case study, and the case method means different things to different people. Consequently, all case studies are not structured similarly, and variations abound in terms of style, structure and approach. Case material ranges from small caselets (a few paragraphs to one-two pages) to short cases (four to six pages) and from 10 to 18 page case studies to the longer versions (25 pages and above). A case is usually a “description of an actual situation, commonly involving a decision, a challenge...
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