DRAFT

To:
Cc:

Robert Grimshaw
Caspar de Bono, Tas Viglatzis, MB Christie, Della Bradshaw, Anthony Hitchings, Richard
Stagg, Chris Locke
Fr:
Nancy Cutler
Re:
Market for Academic Case Studies
Date: January 10, 2011
Executive Summary
The case study a detailed written account of a company or person and business decision and the
case method are used in undergraduate business education, graduate management education,
executive education, and in corporate learning settings. Harvard Business Press dominates the case
ecosystem. It reports that 80% of the cases used worldwide are authored by its faculty and it is also
one of three main case distributors to academic and corporate customers. The Richard Ivey School
of Business in Canada and the European Case Clearing House, a non-profit consortium, are the two
other main distributors. Beyond Harvard, cases are written by faculty at the roughly 50 leading
academic business research institutions around the world. In 2009, an estimated 10 million cases
were sold worldwide, representing 44 million USD or 28 million GBP (see Appendix 1 for details.)
There are no market forecasts for case sales, but it is expected these numbers will increase along
with enrolment trends with above average growth seen in Asia.
Background
The case method of teaching business curricula is said to have originated at Harvard Business
School (HBS) not long after its founding in 1908. It is predicated on the belief that discussion
focused on real-world situations and guided by skilled instructors will better prepare students for
professional life than would lecture and theory alone.
The case study itself is a detailed written account of a company or person and business decision. A
case will range from just a few pages to 30 or more. Beyond the narrative, a case will include
relevant documentation such as financial statements, organizational charts and short biographies.
These charts and tables are referred to as exhibits. A teaching note is included separately for
professors.
Cases and the case method are used in undergraduate business education, graduate management
education, executive education and in corporate learning settings. The vast majority of the cases
used by these audience segments are authored by academic faculty, have pedagogical
underpinnings and are written to illustrate a specific teaching point.
They are distributed both in print and electronic (PDF) formats and can be accompanied by
multimedia supplements, such as video-recordings of interviews with the case protagonist.
However, news journalism, caselets, industry articles, and research by academic and nonacademic sources are not cases as described and thus are outside the scope of this memo.
Some cases studies have been taught for so long that they are considered classics. For example, a
1975 case by HBS professor Norman Berg chronicles the success of Lincoln Electric in Cleveland,
OH, which is a manufacturer best known for its unique compensation system. (Case is appended.)
This general management case asks readers to consider whether the compensation system is
sustainable over time. In academic settings, students will typically read a case like Lincoln Electric,

discuss it in small groups or study teams and answer written questions before discussing it en
masse in a lecture setting facilitated by the professor. Students may also make recommendations
and formally present in class.
Case Ecosystem
The main activities in the value chain for case studies are authoring, publishing, sales and
distribution.
Case Study Ecosystem
Retail
Price

Other Distribution
(Case clearing house,
e-portal, non-academic
publisher)

Faculty
Author

Academic
Institution

(grad students)

Royalties

University Press
Distribution
(e.g. e-commerce portals,
sales teams)

Academic
Customer
(Undergrad, grad & exec
ed. School facilitates
purchase)

Corporate Customer
(Executive development,
corporate trainers, other
in-company programs)

Student

Part of tuition or
coursepack fee

Employee

Paid by firm

Unaffiliated Individual
(personal use)

2009 Market Size

Revenue: ~44M USD / 28M GBP
Volume: ~10M individual cases sold
Money flows

Authoring
Cases are often based on companies or industries with which professors have personal experience
and connections. While a professor(s) is listed as the principal author, in practice, graduate
student(s) supervised by the professor likely did most of researching, interviewing and writing
whether are not they are listed as co-author. Cases are trialled in the classroom before publication
in many but not all instances.
Due to the longevity of its brand, its educational excellence, and the financial resources it devotes,
Harvard and its business faculty have long dominated case authoring (not to mention, the entire
ecosystem, as discussed later). In terms of case writing, Harvard cites that nearly 80% of cases used
at business schools worldwide are developed by its faculty.
Beyond Harvard, cases are written by faculty at the leading academic research institutions around
the world, on the order of 50 of them (see Appendix 1). Particular schools have established case
centers, including the Kellogg School of Management in the United States, IESE Business School
in Spain, and the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua Univeristy in China. At
Kellogg, the center offers case research funding, professional copy editing, and guidance. At
Tsinghua, there are 10 case writers supporting faculty that produce 50 new cases each year.
Many top schools incent their faculty to write cases because it helps with extending the school
brands brand and reputation. Ad hoc, new cases are written by professors when they are unable to
find existing cases to meet their needs or when an issue or company is considered topical. Case
writing represents a significant investment of time and resources. Most cases written are never
widely used it is quite difficult to write a good case that sells.

Publishing and Distribution

There are two routes to distribution for faculty that write cases. In the first, the associated
universitys own press handles the publishing (editing, typesetting, translating) as well as the sales,
marketing and distribution. Harvard, Darden, and Ivey Publishing use this model.
In the second, the school may handle the publishing functions but allow their cases to be distributed
and sold by another academic or non-academic publisher; a case clearing house; or other learning
portal (e.g. McGraw-Hill Create). Some schools might also allow cases to be distributed for free
via the Web.
As noted, Harvard is the dominant authoring institution and Harvard Business Publishing, its
university press, is the dominant publisher and distributor in the ecosystem. Harvard distributes
cases from 14 other pre-eminent institutions. Distant second(s) to Harvard are the Richard Ivey
School of Business in Canada and ECCH, a non-profit consortium of academic institutions led by
Cranfield University in the UK and Babson in the U.S. Ivey Publishing distributes 10 other
institutions in addition to its own academic cases and has a particular emphasis on Asia. ECCH
distributes the case collections of 38 other institutions.
Users will purchase from Harvard because of the Harvard brand; they tend to choose ECCH if
theyre in Europe or have a European focus; Ivey is typically chosen in part for its collection of
cases set in Asia and the Middle East.
Case Sales and Distribution
Representative Institutions

Notes

Harvard Business Publishing

Ivey Publishing

Harvard's non-profit university press

The non-profit press at the Richard Ivey

School of Business in Canada

Non-profit consortia of academic institutions

European Case Clearing House (primarily) + corporate members

Darden Business Publishing

The non-profit university press of the

University of Virginia

School of Economics and

Management at Tsinghua
University, Beijing

Leading mainland Chinese business school

Number of cases
available

Target
Segments
Served

Institutions Sold

Harvard + 14 other institutions, e.g. Darden,

13,000 INSEAD, Kellogg
All
Ivey + 10 other institutions, e.g.
Thunderbird, China-Europe International
Business School (CEIBS), Gordon Institute of
All
2,600 Business Science (University of Pretoria)
~40 including Harvard, Wharton, Asian Case
Research Center, Thunderbird, Tecnolgico
de Monterrey, Mexico, Social Enterprise
All
38,500 Knowledge Network (SEKN)

~2,100 Only Darden

All

Primarily distributed internally; selection

~300 distributed through Ivey and HBSP

Academic

McGraw-Hill Create

Online product from McGraw-Hill that allows

instructors to pull case material into custom
textbooks

Harvard, Darden, MIT Sloan, Society for

NA Case Research, among others

Academic

Pearson Learning Solutions

As above, PLS' custom business product

allow includes case and other educational
material to be compiled in a custom book

Harvard, Wharton, Thunderbird, Notre

NA Dame, Ivey, ECCH, Darden among others

Academic

Harvard Business Publishing

Corporate Learning

Harvard has several corporate learning

platforms; Case in Point and Leadership
Direct include case-based learning

~8,000 Harvard

Corporate

Note: While 38,500 cases are available through ECCH, roughly 20% sell in meaningful volumes

Target Market Segments

There are three principal customer segments for cases: academic, corporate and individuals. In
2009, an estimated 10 million cases were sold worldwide, representing 44 million USD or 28
million GBP. These numbers are based on publicly available pricing and sales statistics, but as no
market figures exist that account for the totality of the space, a good number of assumptions had to
be made. Please see Appendix 2 for the calculations.
Academic
The academic segment is composed of undergraduate business education and graduate
management education masters, MBA, and Executive MBA programs.
Some academic institutions widely make use of cases, some not very much. The use of cases
depends on the discipline as well; strategy and organizational behaviour classes tend to rely heavily
on cases, while finance and accounting less so. A case-heavy school might have students working
on a case every other week in at least 3 classes, resulting in 45 cases consumed in an academic
year.
Business Degree Programs Offered, Reported by World Region (2008-2009)
All Programs

Undergraduate

Master's

Other

Asia

484

114

258

32

Canada

410

199

136

21

Europe

1321

460

727

36

148

33

91

16

58

35

18

583

168

301

78

Latin and South America

Middle East
Oceana
United States

9648
12,652
Difficult to get reaso nable
estimate.

4776
5,785

4052
5,582

164
352
1,500 - 2,000 institutio ns are
estimated to have purchase
~8.6M case studies in 2009

So urce: A sso ciatio n to A dvance Co llegiate Scho o ls o f B usiness estimated wo rldwide figures. Executive, parttime & o ther M B A catego ry is included in the "M aster's" co lumn. The do cto ral catego ry is no t sho wn. Case
vo lume fo r M aster's is internal estimate. See Exhibit 2.

How many institutions buy cases? The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business
reports that there are 5,582 masters programs worldwide (chart above right). This figure in the
neighbourhood of that cited by the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which
reports more than 4,800 programs (representing 1,500 universities and institutions) accept the
GMAT as part of the selection criteria for their programs. A reasonable estimate then, is that there
are likely 1,500 2,000 institutional buyers of case studies. They represent an 8.7M cases sold or
$31.1M in revenue in 2009 (see Appendix 2). In truth, some portion of the 8.7M sold includes
undergraduate programs; hard numbers were difficult to come by. There is the sense that cases are
likely used in undergraduate programs where faculty are also teaching MBAs.
Growth in the number of cases sold to these institutions will follow enrolment increases (or
decreases) to some extent. In terms of growth going forward, modest growth along historical lines
will likely be seen in North America and Canada. There are a greater number students coming from
Asian countries, largely India and China, but the majority of them continue to study in the U.S.
However, that share is slowly shrinking. In 2010, GMAC reported that business schools in the

United States have experienced a reduction in global market share since 2005. Countries like India,
Singapore and Spain have seen increases, by contrast. (See Appendix 3 for detail on enrolment.)
Corporate
The corporate segment consists of companies that (a) purchase case studies as part of business
school-led executive development programs, e.g. Kraft has Harvard conduct a development
program for operations managers (b) third-party trainers that provide these services to corporates
and (c) in-house trainers purchasing on behalf of their employers.
The European Case Clearing House commented that 10% of its sales by volume are to this
segment. Based on ECCHs insight and other comments, our best-guess estimates as shown in
Appendix 1 have 1.8M cases sold to the corporate market in 2009, representing $12.7M in revenue.
The number of corporate buyers over time likely experiences greater variance as the training and
development market is highly cyclical. It is also heavily concentrated in the banking and consulting
worlds, along with training companies and large multinationals. For example, among ECCHs
corporate members are Xcellon Educated Limited, Streamwise Learning, The Boston Consulting
Group GMBH Germany, Tata Management Training Centre, Bain & Co, AXA Universite, and
Standard Bank of South Africa Ltd.
As a final thought, those interviewed had the sense that more could be done with corporations.
Exactly how much more is unclear.
Individuals
The last segment is composed of individuals. This is a disparate group that are buying cases to meet
different needs; for example, to facilitate independent research or get background knowledge on a
client or industry. Individuals attending public programs run by business schools (e.g. 1-day
seminars on management & strategy) also fall into this bucket. This is a fragmented and much
smaller segment relative to the other two.
Business Model
In the academic segment, the faculty member will choose particular cases to meet the needs of the
curricula. The school will facilitate the purchase of cases, paying a per download or per printed
case price (~$3 or 2). The end-user, the student, typically doesnt bear the cost directly as the
associated fees are bundled into tuition prices or the larger course fees for the class.
In the corporate segment, a learning professional will choose a case with the cost being bourn by
the company. For business-school run programs, the faculty chooses the case. Corporate fees per
case are closer to $5 or 4. For individuals who purchase the odd case, the fee approaches $7 or 6.
Institutions and corporations that purchase in volume will have direct relationships and deals with
the distributors. In all instances, the revenue generated flows to the distributor, which takes a
percentage of the sale.
Authoring institutions view case writing as a marketing endeavour vs. a business. A back-of-theenvelope analysis of ECCH suggests that distributors capture most of the value associated with
case writing. Harvard, which owns the copyright on its nearly 8,000 cases and distributes them
likely captures most of the value in the ecosystem. (See Appendix 4 for detail on HBP revenue and
volume history.)

E-delivery of a Case Purchased through ECCH by an Academic Customer

Price/Case
Distributor (ECCH)
Member institution gets 31%*
Faculty author may/may not get royalties

Revenue
2.90
2.00
0.90
0-.90

Costs
Marketing to potential customers
Minimal to substantial faculty support e.g grants, case writing/editing resources
Time investment, travel possibly, paying case writer

*ECCH's Web site states that member institutions receive 31% of the revenue from the sale of their cases

Competition
In the academic market, there hasnt been a tremendous amount of movement in the cases
predominantly used (top schools like Harvard) and where theyre purchased (Harvard, Ivey,
ECCH). Faculty invest a substantial amount of time learning and preparing for a case, and often
choose the same ones year to lighten their workload such that they can focus on priorities like
academic research.
In the corporate market, the educational brand names (Harvard, Wharton) similarly carry weight on
the authoring side. The growth of e-learning platforms has led to a greater number of outlets for
purchasing cases. More work would need to be done to understand the number and composition of
distributors serving this relatively less mature market.
Case Study Ecosystem: Competitive snapshot

Retail
Price

Other Distribution

Authoring/Publishing:
Harvard + ~ 50 other
institutions

(European Case Clearing

House + entities like
McGraw-Hill, Pearson,
Xanedu, etc.)

Academic Customer
(Undergrad, grad, exec ed.)
2009 est: 8.7M cases/$31M

Student
Part of tuition or
coursepack fee

Royalties

University Press
Distribution

Corporate Customer
(EDP, corporate trainers, incompany programs)
2009 est: 1.8M cases /$13M

Employee
Paid by firm

(Harvard, Ivey, Darden)

Unaffiliated Individual
(personal use)

Harvard says 80% of the case used worldwide

are authored by its faculty. They are thought to be
the main distributor to both the academic and
corporate markets.

Money flows

Trends and Predictions

Every school is encouraging a global perspective, which is reflected in the choice of cases for
curricula. Asian schools have made a concerted effort to develop more locally grown cases.
The rise of Asia and particularly China has led to more cases being written about Chinese firms by
outsiders and an increased focus on case writing by the top-tier schools in the region. In fact, there
is a government mandate to do so among the top business schools. Ivey in particular distributes the
cases of quite a few Asian schools, including Yonsei University (Korea) and National Chengchi
University (Taiwan). This trend should continue as more Asian students choose to study locally.

However, it is early days. There are relatively few of these cases vs. the backlog created by North
American and European schools (a ballpark estimate suggests that 80% or more of the cases that
exist center on North American firms) and the U.S. remains the preferred destination for examinees
from East and Southeast Asia. According to GMAC, in 2009 more than 77% of score reports sent
from citizens of the region went to business programs located in the United States.
It is also unclear how well foreign cases travel cross-border; part of the issue lies in the difficulty of
translating cases written in a foreign language into English. At Tsinghua, for example, they rely on
the very few translators who are facile in both languages and understand business nuances and
terms. They also have case writers who predominantly write in English, which obviates the need.
Jim Erskine, a Professor Emeritus at Ivey and the author of several books on the subject stated that
the popularity of case-writing workshops around the world is because cases dont travel well.
(Erskine has taught some 275 workshops in 45 countries.) Cases are time and context-based and
instructors in Asian or Middle Eastern or European universities who want to use cases need them
set in the local context.
The demand for shorter cases has grown.
Part-time programs that cater to working professionals and in-house corporate learning
environments particularly (and unsurprisingly) favour more compact cases than those at the 30-40
end of the page range.
Possibly in response, Harvard created a collection called Brief Cases; each are 5-8 narrative pages
with 3-4 exhibits. There are approximately 50 cases in the collection now.
Theres a desire for more recent cases on the part of students; the corporate segment has the
means to get that desire met.
Truly, all students wish cases were topical and timely but its unlikely they will get their wish.
Professors, who make the buying decision, care less about the time period of case and more about
how perfectly the case addresses a teaching point. A 1974 case on Lincoln Electric may illustrate a
pedagogical theory better than any one written since, potentially. In fact, professors may not look to
introduce more current information about a company if it ruins the story.
One notable exception is the companies that pay for tailored programs (the Harvard-Kraft example
mentioned earlier). These executive students may get cases written purely for them or they can
insist (and pay) for a professor to update a case.
Digital technology has had an effect on case distribution; in the future, case content as well (?).
The majority of cases are distributed via electronic means (PDF) but reportedly, students still prefer
to use paper in the classroom, but that is likely to change over time and with it, perhaps, the ability
to embed multimedia elements vs. having those elements sold separate and distinct from the case.
Whether this would be a real benefit in the case context, and one anyone would pay extra for, is
debateable.
Georgia State Universitys Robinson College of Business rolled out a pilot in the fall of 2010
where students in the colleges Executive MBA program were given iPads as a replacement for
textbooks. By fall 2011, the school plans to distribute the devices to students in the schools

professional and global partner MBA programs, the one-year specialized masters program, and the
executive doctorate in business. IMD Business School in Switzerland used the iPad in an executive
education program in May of 2009, and schools like Darden said they are looking to develop
course material specifically for the iPad.

Sources
Observations about how cases are authored, distributed and used were provided during interviews
with the following people. I chose not to associate particular observations and thoughts with quotes
and direct citations as these individuals spoke with me for business development purposes only and
were generally sensitive to the FT editorial connection.
Luis Cabral, Professor of Economics at IESE, former professor at Nova (Portugal), LBS,
LSE, Berkeley, Yale, and NYU's Stern School of Business. Cabral is also research fellow of
the Center for Economic Policy Research and president of the European Association for
Research in Industrial Economics
Sheila Duran, Director of Publication Initiatives, Kellogg School of Management,
Northwestern University, United States
Christine Ecker, Executive Director, Research Division at IESE Business School,
University of Navarra, Spain
Jim Erskine, Professor Emeritus, Richard Ivey School of Business, The University of
Western Ontario, Canada
Ning Jia, assistant professor and associate director of the case center, School of Economics
and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Richard McCracken, director of the European Case Clearing House, Cranfield, UK
Jim Palos, Former president and Founder of The Institute of Media and Education - IME (a
niche business school serving the media and entertainment industries)
Yingyi Qian, Dean, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing,
China
Eric Weiner, Former Director of the Financial Services Practice at Wharton Executive
Education
Statistics from the following reports are included in this memo. (Click on the link to download)

Business School Data Trends and 2010 List of Accredited Schools, AACSB
International.

2009 World Geographic Trend Report for GMAT Examinees, GMAC.

Appendix 1
Top Authoring Institutions Worldwide
Aalto University School of Economics, Finland (formerly HSE)
Arthur Blank Center of Entrepreneurship, Babson College, USA
Asia Case Research Centre, University of Hong Kong
Asian Business Case Centre, Singapore
Babson College, USA
Bogazici University, Turkey
Business Enterprise Trust
CASE Association
Case Method Institute
China Europe International Business School, China
College of Commerce
Cranfield School of Management, UK
Darden Graduate School of Business, USA
Design Management Institute
ESMT European School of Management and Technology, Germany
ESSEC Business School, France
Gordon Institute of Business Science (University of Pretoria)
Graduate School of Management (GSOM), St. Petersburg State University, Russia
Harvard Business Publishing, USA
ICMR Center for Management Research, India
IESE Business School, Spain
IKC Knowledge Center, India
IMD, Switzerland
INCAE Business School, Costa Rica
Indian School of Business
Indiana University CIBER, USA
INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France and Singapore
Kellogg School of Management, USA
Kennedy School of Government Case Program at Harvard University, USA
London Business School, UK
Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Pakistan
Nanyang Businss School at Nanyang Technological University
National Chengchi University
Peking University
Reaching Out MBA Case Collection
Richard Ivey School of Business, Canada
Senate Hall Academic Publishing
Social Enterprise Knowledge Network (SEKN)
Stanford Graduate School of Business, USA
Tecnolgico de Monterrey, Mexico
The Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG)
Thunderbird School of Global Management, USA
Tsinghua University
University of Hong Kong
Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School
WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management, Germany
Wits Business School, South Africa
Yonsei University

Appendix 2
Case Study Market Size - 2009

Distributors
European Case Clearing House
Harvard Business School Publishing
IVEY Publishing

blue =assumption

Total Sales Volume

1,041,496
8,334,000
1,041,496
total
10,416,991

By Segment
Academic
Corporate

Total Sales Volume

8,593,967
1,823,024
10,416,991

% Sales to
Academic
90%
80%
95%

% of Total
82%
18%

% Sales to
Corporate
10%
20%
5%

Total Revenue
$31,106,807
$12,641,378
$43,748,185

Pricing
Academic
Corporate*
$4.95
$8.50
$3.48
$6.95
$3.30
$3.30

Revenue
$5,525,134
$34,786,116
$3,436,935
$43,748,185
28,180,393 GBP (at $1 to 0.64415)

% of Total
71%
29%

*Individuals sales assumed in the corporate segment

Notes: Harvard publishes the volume of cases sold in a given year and all three distributors quote pricing (though some assumptions were made to get a representative price in the instance there was a difference between print and
electronic distribution.) Pricing assumptions were rate card and do not assume volume discounts were given. Further, the following assumptions were made:
-Harvard represents 80% of the cases sold by volume while ECCH and IVEY represent the 20% remainder equally. These 3 distributors represent the market.
-For Harvard and Ivey, the percentage of cases sold to the academic vs. corporate markets represent an educated guess. ECCH commented that roughly 10% of its volume goes to the corporate market.
Interesting note: The International Community of Case Publishers met in the last year to discuss the very subject of market size - and wasn't able to formulate a way to move forward.

Exhibit 3
GMAT Total Exams Taken 2003-2009

Total exams taken

y/y growth

2003
219,077

2004
206,852
-6%

2005
200,503
-3%

2006
204,509
2%

2007
219,077
7%

2008
246,957
13%

2009
265,613
8%

2005-2009
CAGR

2003-2009
CAGR

7%

3%

The number of Asian citizens taking the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) per year rose 75 percent between 2005 and 2009, more than twice
the global increase in GMAT testing volume over the same period.
Note: GMAT exams are a proxy for enrollment and are a leading indicator as exams are taken a year or more in advance of enrollment. Moreover, the numbers
above do not capture those students who wish attend schools that do not require the GMAT

Enrollment in Business Programs Worldwide **based on member survey**, 2008-2009

Source: Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business

Undergraduate
MBA
Specialized Masters Programs

US
832,938
151,215
39,250
1,023,403

International
279,163
89,200
59,670
428,033

Total
1,112,101
240,415
98,920
1,451,436

**AACSB figures rely on input from members/schools reporting in; it does not reflect total enrollment but does suggest the minimum market size

Exhibit 4
Harvard Business Publishing (HBP)
Volume

2001
6,488,000
1078000
240000
3342000

2002
6,434,000
1010000
238000
2924000

2003
6,663,000
771000
247000
2908000

2004
6,999,000
1180000
240000
2910000

2005
6,958,000
1,272,000
240,000
2,929,000

2006
7,428,000
1,409,000
243,000
3,112,000

2007
7,785,000
1,882,000
248,000
3,061,000

2008
8,240,000
2,025,000
246,000
3,123,000

2009
8,334,000
1,478,000
237,000
2,863,000

4%

-1%

4%

5%

-1%

7%

5%

6%

1%

HBP Revenue ($M)

Revenue y/y growth

98

106
8%

119
12%

128
8%

139
9%

137
-1%

HBP Expense
Revenue y/y growth

35

35
0%

42
20%

51
21%

53
4%

54
2%

Cases Sold
Harvard Business Press Books Sold
HBR Circulation
HBR Reprints Sold

Cases sold y/y growth

Source: HBS Annual Reports

2000
6,220,000
1118000
246000
3156000