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Top 40 Most Popular Case Studies of 2021

Two cases about Hertz claimed top spots in 2021's Top 40 Most Popular Case Studies

Two cases on the uses of debt and equity at Hertz claimed top spots in the CRDT’s (Case Research and Development Team) 2021 top 40 review of cases.

Hertz (A) took the top spot. The case details the financial structure of the rental car company through the end of 2019. Hertz (B), which ranked third in CRDT’s list, describes the company’s struggles during the early part of the COVID pandemic and its eventual need to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 

The success of the Hertz cases was unprecedented for the top 40 list. Usually, cases take a number of years to gain popularity, but the Hertz cases claimed top spots in their first year of release. Hertz (A) also became the first ‘cooked’ case to top the annual review, as all of the other winners had been web-based ‘raw’ cases.

Besides introducing students to the complicated financing required to maintain an enormous fleet of cars, the Hertz cases also expanded the diversity of case protagonists. Kathyrn Marinello was the CEO of Hertz during this period and the CFO, Jamere Jackson is black.

Sandwiched between the two Hertz cases, Coffee 2016, a perennial best seller, finished second. “Glory, Glory, Man United!” a case about an English football team’s IPO made a surprise move to number four.  Cases on search fund boards, the future of malls,  Norway’s Sovereign Wealth fund, Prodigy Finance, the Mayo Clinic, and Cadbury rounded out the top ten.

Other year-end data for 2021 showed:

• Online “raw” case usage remained steady as compared to 2020 with over 35K users from 170 countries and all 50 U.S. states interacting with 196 cases.
• Fifty four percent of raw case users came from outside the U.S..
• The Yale School of Management (SOM) case study directory pages received over 160K page views from 177 countries with approximately a third originating in India followed by the U.S. and the Philippines.
• Twenty-six of the cases in the list are raw cases.
• A third of the cases feature a woman protagonist.
• Orders for Yale SOM case studies increased by almost 50% compared to 2020.
• The top 40 cases were supervised by 19 different Yale SOM faculty members, several supervising multiple cases.

CRDT compiled the Top 40 list by combining data from its case store, Google Analytics, and other measures of interest and adoption.

All of this year’s Top 40 cases are available for purchase from the Yale Management Media store .

And the Top 40 cases studies of 2021 are:

1.   Hertz Global Holdings (A): Uses of Debt and Equity

2.   Coffee 2016

3.   Hertz Global Holdings (B): Uses of Debt and Equity 2020

4.   Glory, Glory Man United!

5.   Search Fund Company Boards: How CEOs Can Build Boards to Help Them Thrive

6.   The Future of Malls: Was Decline Inevitable?

7.   Strategy for Norway's Pension Fund Global

8.   Prodigy Finance

9.   Design at Mayo

10. Cadbury

11. City Hospital Emergency Room

13. Volkswagen

14. Marina Bay Sands

15. Shake Shack IPO

16. Mastercard

17. Netflix

18. Ant Financial

19. AXA: Creating the New CR Metrics

20. IBM Corporate Service Corps

21. Business Leadership in South Africa's 1994 Reforms

22. Alternative Meat Industry

23. Children's Premier

24. Khalil Tawil and Umi (A)

25. Palm Oil 2016

26. Teach For All: Designing a Global Network

27. What's Next? Search Fund Entrepreneurs Reflect on Life After Exit

28. Searching for a Search Fund Structure: A Student Takes a Tour of Various Options

30. Project Sammaan

31. Commonfund ESG

32. Polaroid

33. Connecticut Green Bank 2018: After the Raid

34. FieldFresh Foods

35. The Alibaba Group

36. 360 State Street: Real Options

37. Herman Miller

38. AgBiome

39. Nathan Cummings Foundation

40. Toyota 2010

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What the Case Study Method Really Teaches

• Nitin Nohria

Seven meta-skills that stick even if the cases fade from memory.

It’s been 100 years since Harvard Business School began using the case study method. Beyond teaching specific subject matter, the case study method excels in instilling meta-skills in students. This article explains the importance of seven such skills: preparation, discernment, bias recognition, judgement, collaboration, curiosity, and self-confidence.

During my decade as dean of Harvard Business School, I spent hundreds of hours talking with our alumni. To enliven these conversations, I relied on a favorite question: “What was the most important thing you learned from your time in our MBA program?”

• Nitin Nohria is the George F. Baker Professor of Business Administration, Distinguished University Service Professor, and former dean of Harvard Business School.

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Blog Business How to Present a Case Study like a Pro (With Examples)

How to Present a Case Study like a Pro (With Examples)

Written by: Danesh Ramuthi Sep 07, 2023

Okay, let’s get real: case studies can be kinda snooze-worthy. But guess what? They don’t have to be!

In this article, I will cover every element that transforms a mere report into a compelling case study, from selecting the right metrics to using persuasive narrative techniques.

And if you’re feeling a little lost, don’t worry! There are cool tools like Venngage’s Case Study Creator to help you whip up something awesome, even if you’re short on time. Plus, the pre-designed case study templates are like instant polish because let’s be honest, everyone loves a shortcut.

Click to jump ahead: 

What is a case study presentation?

What is the purpose of presenting a case study, how to structure a case study presentation, how long should a case study presentation be, 5 case study presentation examples with templates, 6 tips for delivering an effective case study presentation, 5 common mistakes to avoid in a case study presentation, how to present a case study faqs.

A case study presentation involves a comprehensive examination of a specific subject, which could range from an individual, group, location, event, organization or phenomenon.

They’re like puzzles you get to solve with the audience, all while making you think outside the box.

Unlike a basic report or whitepaper, the purpose of a case study presentation is to stimulate critical thinking among the viewers. 

The primary objective of a case study is to provide an extensive and profound comprehension of the chosen topic. You don’t just throw numbers at your audience. You use examples and real-life cases to make you think and see things from different angles.

The primary purpose of presenting a case study is to offer a comprehensive, evidence-based argument that informs, persuades and engages your audience.

Here’s the juicy part: presenting that case study can be your secret weapon. Whether you’re pitching a groundbreaking idea to a room full of suits or trying to impress your professor with your A-game, a well-crafted case study can be the magic dust that sprinkles brilliance over your words.

Think of it like digging into a puzzle you can’t quite crack . A case study lets you explore every piece, turn it over and see how it fits together. This close-up look helps you understand the whole picture, not just a blurry snapshot.

It’s also your chance to showcase how you analyze things, step by step, until you reach a conclusion. It’s all about being open and honest about how you got there.

Besides, presenting a case study gives you an opportunity to connect data and real-world scenarios in a compelling narrative. It helps to make your argument more relatable and accessible, increasing its impact on your audience.

One of the contexts where case studies can be very helpful is during the job interview. In some job interviews, you as candidates may be asked to present a case study as part of the selection process.

Having a case study presentation prepared allows the candidate to demonstrate their ability to understand complex issues, formulate strategies and communicate their ideas effectively.

The way you present a case study can make all the difference in how it’s received. A well-structured presentation not only holds the attention of your audience but also ensures that your key points are communicated clearly and effectively.

In this section, let’s go through the key steps that’ll help you structure your case study presentation for maximum impact.

Let’s get into it. 

Open with an introductory overview 

Start by introducing the subject of your case study and its relevance. Explain why this case study is important and who would benefit from the insights gained. This is your opportunity to grab your audience’s attention.

Explain the problem in question

Dive into the problem or challenge that the case study focuses on. Provide enough background information for the audience to understand the issue. If possible, quantify the problem using data or metrics to show the magnitude or severity.

Detail the solutions to solve the problem

After outlining the problem, describe the steps taken to find a solution. This could include the methodology, any experiments or tests performed and the options that were considered. Make sure to elaborate on why the final solution was chosen over the others.

Key stakeholders Involved

Talk about the individuals, groups or organizations that were directly impacted by or involved in the problem and its solution. 

Stakeholders may experience a range of outcomes—some may benefit, while others could face setbacks.

For example, in a business transformation case study, employees could face job relocations or changes in work culture, while shareholders might be looking at potential gains or losses.

Discuss the key results & outcomes

Discuss the results of implementing the solution. Use data and metrics to back up your statements. Did the solution meet its objectives? What impact did it have on the stakeholders? Be honest about any setbacks or areas for improvement as well.

Include visuals to support your analysis

Visual aids can be incredibly effective in helping your audience grasp complex issues. Utilize charts, graphs, images or video clips to supplement your points. Make sure to explain each visual and how it contributes to your overall argument.

Pie charts illustrate the proportion of different components within a whole, useful for visualizing market share, budget allocation or user demographics.

This is particularly useful especially if you’re displaying survey results in your case study presentation.

Stacked charts on the other hand are perfect for visualizing composition and trends. This is great for analyzing things like customer demographics, product breakdowns or budget allocation in your case study.

Consider this example of a stacked bar chart template. It provides a straightforward summary of the top-selling cake flavors across various locations, offering a quick and comprehensive view of the data.

Not the chart you’re looking for? Browse Venngage’s gallery of chart templates to find the perfect one that’ll captivate your audience and level up your data storytelling.

Recommendations and next steps

Wrap up by providing recommendations based on the case study findings. Outline the next steps that stakeholders should take to either expand on the success of the project or address any remaining challenges.

Acknowledgments and references

Thank the people who contributed to the case study and helped in the problem-solving process. Cite any external resources, reports or data sets that contributed to your analysis.

Feedback & Q&A session

Open the floor for questions and feedback from your audience. This allows for further discussion and can provide additional insights that may not have been considered previously.

Closing remarks

Conclude the presentation by summarizing the key points and emphasizing the takeaways. Thank your audience for their time and participation and express your willingness to engage in further discussions or collaborations on the subject.

Well, the length of a case study presentation can vary depending on the complexity of the topic and the needs of your audience. However, a typical business or academic presentation often lasts between 15 to 30 minutes. 

This time frame usually allows for a thorough explanation of the case while maintaining audience engagement. However, always consider leaving a few minutes at the end for a Q&A session to address any questions or clarify points made during the presentation.

When it comes to presenting a compelling case study, having a well-structured template can be a game-changer. 

It helps you organize your thoughts, data and findings in a coherent and visually pleasing manner. 

Not all case studies are created equal and different scenarios require distinct approaches for maximum impact. 

To save you time and effort, I have curated a list of 5 versatile case study presentation templates, each designed for specific needs and audiences. 

Here are some best case study presentation examples that showcase effective strategies for engaging your audience and conveying complex information clearly.

1 . Lab report case study template

Ever feel like your research gets lost in a world of endless numbers and jargon? Lab case studies are your way out!

Think of it as building a bridge between your cool experiment and everyone else. It’s more than just reporting results – it’s explaining the “why” and “how” in a way that grabs attention and makes sense.

This lap report template acts as a blueprint for your report, guiding you through each essential section (introduction, methods, results, etc.) in a logical order.

Want to present your research like a pro? Browse our research presentation template gallery for creative inspiration!

2. Product case study template

It’s time you ditch those boring slideshows and bullet points because I’ve got a better way to win over clients: product case study templates.

Instead of just listing features and benefits, you get to create a clear and concise story that shows potential clients exactly what your product can do for them. It’s like painting a picture they can easily visualize, helping them understand the value your product brings to the table.

Grab the template below, fill in the details, and watch as your product’s impact comes to life!

3. Content marketing case study template

In digital marketing, showcasing your accomplishments is as vital as achieving them. 

A well-crafted case study not only acts as a testament to your successes but can also serve as an instructional tool for others. 

With this coral content marketing case study template—a perfect blend of vibrant design and structured documentation, you can narrate your marketing triumphs effectively.

4. Case study psychology template

Understanding how people tick is one of psychology’s biggest quests and case studies are like magnifying glasses for the mind. They offer in-depth looks at real-life behaviors, emotions and thought processes, revealing fascinating insights into what makes us human.

Writing a top-notch case study, though, can be a challenge. It requires careful organization, clear presentation and meticulous attention to detail. That’s where a good case study psychology template comes in handy.

Think of it as a helpful guide, taking care of formatting and structure while you focus on the juicy content. No more wrestling with layouts or margins – just pour your research magic into crafting a compelling narrative.

5. Lead generation case study template

Lead generation can be a real head-scratcher. But here’s a little help: a lead generation case study.

Think of it like a friendly handshake and a confident resume all rolled into one. It’s your chance to showcase your expertise, share real-world successes and offer valuable insights. Potential clients get to see your track record, understand your approach and decide if you’re the right fit.

No need to start from scratch, though. This lead generation case study template guides you step-by-step through crafting a clear, compelling narrative that highlights your wins and offers actionable tips for others. Fill in the gaps with your specific data and strategies, and voilà! You’ve got a powerful tool to attract new customers.

Related: 15+ Professional Case Study Examples [Design Tips + Templates]

So, you’ve spent hours crafting the perfect case study and are now tasked with presenting it. Crafting the case study is only half the battle; delivering it effectively is equally important. 

Whether you’re facing a room of executives, academics or potential clients, how you present your findings can make a significant difference in how your work is received. 

Forget boring reports and snooze-inducing presentations! Let’s make your case study sing. Here are some key pointers to turn information into an engaging and persuasive performance:

• Know your audience : Tailor your presentation to the knowledge level and interests of your audience. Remember to use language and examples that resonate with them.
• Rehearse : Rehearsing your case study presentation is the key to a smooth delivery and for ensuring that you stay within the allotted time. Practice helps you fine-tune your pacing, hone your speaking skills with good word pronunciations and become comfortable with the material, leading to a more confident, conversational and effective presentation.
• Start strong : Open with a compelling introduction that grabs your audience’s attention. You might want to use an interesting statistic, a provocative question or a brief story that sets the stage for your case study.
• Be clear and concise : Avoid jargon and overly complex sentences. Get to the point quickly and stay focused on your objectives.
• Use visual aids : Incorporate slides with graphics, charts or videos to supplement your verbal presentation. Make sure they are easy to read and understand.
• Tell a story : Use storytelling techniques to make the case study more engaging. A well-told narrative can help you make complex data more relatable and easier to digest.

Ditching the dry reports and slide decks? Venngage’s case study templates let you wow customers with your solutions and gain insights to improve your business plan. Pre-built templates, visual magic and customer captivation – all just a click away. Go tell your story and watch them say “wow!”

Nailed your case study, but want to make your presentation even stronger? Avoid these common mistakes to ensure your audience gets the most out of it:

Overloading with information

A case study is not an encyclopedia. Overloading your presentation with excessive data, text or jargon can make it cumbersome and difficult for the audience to digest the key points. Stick to what’s essential and impactful. Need help making your data clear and impactful? Our data presentation templates can help! Find clear and engaging visuals to showcase your findings.

Lack of structure

Jumping haphazardly between points or topics can confuse your audience. A well-structured presentation, with a logical flow from introduction to conclusion, is crucial for effective communication.

Ignoring the audience

Different audiences have different needs and levels of understanding. Failing to adapt your presentation to your audience can result in a disconnect and a less impactful presentation.

Poor visual elements

While content is king, poor design or lack of visual elements can make your case study dull or hard to follow. Make sure you use high-quality images, graphs and other visual aids to support your narrative.

Not focusing on results

A case study aims to showcase a problem and its solution, but what most people care about are the results. Failing to highlight or adequately explain the outcomes can make your presentation fall flat.

How to start a case study presentation?

Starting a case study presentation effectively involves a few key steps:

• Grab attention : Open with a hook—an intriguing statistic, a provocative question or a compelling visual—to engage your audience from the get-go.
• Set the stage : Briefly introduce the subject, context and relevance of the case study to give your audience an idea of what to expect.
• Outline objectives : Clearly state what the case study aims to achieve. Are you solving a problem, proving a point or showcasing a success?
• Agenda : Give a quick outline of the key sections or topics you’ll cover to help the audience follow along.
• Set expectations : Let your audience know what you want them to take away from the presentation, whether it’s knowledge, inspiration or a call to action.

How to present a case study on PowerPoint and on Google Slides?

Presenting a case study on PowerPoint and Google Slides involves a structured approach for clarity and impact using presentation slides :

• Title slide : Start with a title slide that includes the name of the case study, your name and any relevant institutional affiliations.
• Introduction : Follow with a slide that outlines the problem or situation your case study addresses. Include a hook to engage the audience.
• Objectives : Clearly state the goals of the case study in a dedicated slide.
• Findings : Use charts, graphs and bullet points to present your findings succinctly.
• Analysis : Discuss what the findings mean, drawing on supporting data or secondary research as necessary.
• Conclusion : Summarize key takeaways and results.
• Q&A : End with a slide inviting questions from the audience.

What’s the role of analysis in a case study presentation?

The role of analysis in a case study presentation is to interpret the data and findings, providing context and meaning to them. 

It helps your audience understand the implications of the case study, connects the dots between the problem and the solution and may offer recommendations for future action.

Is it important to include real data and results in the presentation?

Yes, including real data and results in a case study presentation is crucial to show experience,  credibility and impact. Authentic data lends weight to your findings and conclusions, enabling the audience to trust your analysis and take your recommendations more seriously

How do I conclude a case study presentation effectively?

To conclude a case study presentation effectively, summarize the key findings, insights and recommendations in a clear and concise manner. 

End with a strong call-to-action or a thought-provoking question to leave a lasting impression on your audience.

What’s the best way to showcase data in a case study presentation ?

The best way to showcase data in a case study presentation is through visual aids like charts, graphs and infographics which make complex information easily digestible, engaging and creative. 

Don’t just report results, visualize them! This template for example lets you transform your social media case study into a captivating infographic that sparks conversation.

Choose the type of visual that best represents the data you’re showing; for example, use bar charts for comparisons or pie charts for parts of a whole. 

Ensure that the visuals are high-quality and clearly labeled, so the audience can quickly grasp the key points. 

Keep the design consistent and simple, avoiding clutter or overly complex visuals that could distract from the message.

Choose a template that perfectly suits your case study where you can utilize different visual aids for maximum impact. 

Need more inspiration on how to turn numbers into impact with the help of infographics? Our ready-to-use infographic templates take the guesswork out of creating visual impact for your case studies with just a few clicks.

Related: 10+ Case Study Infographic Templates That Convert

Congrats on mastering the art of compelling case study presentations! This guide has equipped you with all the essentials, from structure and nuances to avoiding common pitfalls. You’re ready to impress any audience, whether in the boardroom, the classroom or beyond.

And remember, you’re not alone in this journey. Venngage’s Case Study Creator is your trusty companion, ready to elevate your presentations from ordinary to extraordinary. So, let your confidence shine, leverage your newly acquired skills and prepare to deliver presentations that truly resonate.

Go forth and make a lasting impact!

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Cite this chapter

• R. M. Channaveer 4 &
• Rajendra Baikady 5  

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This chapter reviews the strengths and limitations of case study as a research method in social sciences. It provides an account of an evidence base to justify why a case study is best suitable for some research questions and why not for some other research questions. Case study designing around the research context, defining the structure and modality, conducting the study, collecting the data through triangulation mode, analysing the data, and interpreting the data and theory building at the end give a holistic view of it. In addition, the chapter also focuses on the types of case study and when and where to use case study as a research method in social science research.

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R. M. Channaveer

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Rajendra Baikady

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M. Rezaul Islam

Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Niaz Ahmed Khan

Department of Social Work, School of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

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Case study research for better evaluations of complex interventions: rationale and challenges

• Sara Paparini   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1909-2481 1 ,
• Judith Green 2 ,
• Chrysanthi Papoutsi 1 ,
• Jamie Murdoch 3 ,
• Mark Petticrew 4 ,
• Trish Greenhalgh 1 ,
• Benjamin Hanckel 5 &
• Sara Shaw 1  

BMC Medicine volume  18 , Article number:  301 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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The need for better methods for evaluation in health research has been widely recognised. The ‘complexity turn’ has drawn attention to the limitations of relying on causal inference from randomised controlled trials alone for understanding whether, and under which conditions, interventions in complex systems improve health services or the public health, and what mechanisms might link interventions and outcomes. We argue that case study research—currently denigrated as poor evidence—is an under-utilised resource for not only providing evidence about context and transferability, but also for helping strengthen causal inferences when pathways between intervention and effects are likely to be non-linear.

Case study research, as an overall approach, is based on in-depth explorations of complex phenomena in their natural, or real-life, settings. Empirical case studies typically enable dynamic understanding of complex challenges and provide evidence about causal mechanisms and the necessary and sufficient conditions (contexts) for intervention implementation and effects. This is essential evidence not just for researchers concerned about internal and external validity, but also research users in policy and practice who need to know what the likely effects of complex programmes or interventions will be in their settings. The health sciences have much to learn from scholarship on case study methodology in the social sciences. However, there are multiple challenges in fully exploiting the potential learning from case study research. First are misconceptions that case study research can only provide exploratory or descriptive evidence. Second, there is little consensus about what a case study is, and considerable diversity in how empirical case studies are conducted and reported. Finally, as case study researchers typically (and appropriately) focus on thick description (that captures contextual detail), it can be challenging to identify the key messages related to intervention evaluation from case study reports.

Whilst the diversity of published case studies in health services and public health research is rich and productive, we recommend further clarity and specific methodological guidance for those reporting case study research for evaluation audiences.

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The need for methodological development to address the most urgent challenges in health research has been well-documented. Many of the most pressing questions for public health research, where the focus is on system-level determinants [ 1 , 2 ], and for health services research, where provisions typically vary across sites and are provided through interlocking networks of services [ 3 ], require methodological approaches that can attend to complexity. The need for methodological advance has arisen, in part, as a result of the diminishing returns from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) where they have been used to answer questions about the effects of interventions in complex systems [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. In conditions of complexity, there is limited value in maintaining the current orientation to experimental trial designs in the health sciences as providing ‘gold standard’ evidence of effect.

There are increasing calls for methodological pluralism [ 7 , 8 ], with the recognition that complex intervention and context are not easily or usefully separated (as is often the situation when using trial design), and that system interruptions may have effects that are not reducible to linear causal pathways between intervention and outcome. These calls are reflected in a shifting and contested discourse of trial design, seen with the emergence of realist [ 9 ], adaptive and hybrid (types 1, 2 and 3) [ 10 , 11 ] trials that blend studies of effectiveness with a close consideration of the contexts of implementation. Similarly, process evaluation has now become a core component of complex healthcare intervention trials, reflected in MRC guidance on how to explore implementation, causal mechanisms and context [ 12 ].

Evidence about the context of an intervention is crucial for questions of external validity. As Woolcock [ 4 ] notes, even if RCT designs are accepted as robust for maximising internal validity, questions of transferability (how well the intervention works in different contexts) and generalisability (how well the intervention can be scaled up) remain unanswered [ 5 , 13 ]. For research evidence to have impact on policy and systems organisation, and thus to improve population and patient health, there is an urgent need for better methods for strengthening external validity, including a better understanding of the relationship between intervention and context [ 14 ].

Policymakers, healthcare commissioners and other research users require credible evidence of relevance to their settings and populations [ 15 ], to perform what Rosengarten and Savransky [ 16 ] call ‘careful abstraction’ to the locales that matter for them. They also require robust evidence for understanding complex causal pathways. Case study research, currently under-utilised in public health and health services evaluation, can offer considerable potential for strengthening faith in both external and internal validity. For example, in an empirical case study of how the policy of free bus travel had specific health effects in London, UK, a quasi-experimental evaluation (led by JG) identified how important aspects of context (a good public transport system) and intervention (that it was universal) were necessary conditions for the observed effects, thus providing useful, actionable evidence for decision-makers in other contexts [ 17 ].

The overall approach of case study research is based on the in-depth exploration of complex phenomena in their natural, or ‘real-life’, settings. Empirical case studies typically enable dynamic understanding of complex challenges rather than restricting the focus on narrow problem delineations and simple fixes. Case study research is a diverse and somewhat contested field, with multiple definitions and perspectives grounded in different ways of viewing the world, and involving different combinations of methods. In this paper, we raise awareness of such plurality and highlight the contribution that case study research can make to the evaluation of complex system-level interventions. We review some of the challenges in exploiting the current evidence base from empirical case studies and conclude by recommending that further guidance and minimum reporting criteria for evaluation using case studies, appropriate for audiences in the health sciences, can enhance the take-up of evidence from case study research.

Case study research offers evidence about context, causal inference in complex systems and implementation

Well-conducted and described empirical case studies provide evidence on context, complexity and mechanisms for understanding how, where and why interventions have their observed effects. Recognition of the importance of context for understanding the relationships between interventions and outcomes is hardly new. In 1943, Canguilhem berated an over-reliance on experimental designs for determining universal physiological laws: ‘As if one could determine a phenomenon’s essence apart from its conditions! As if conditions were a mask or frame which changed neither the face nor the picture!’ ([ 18 ] p126). More recently, a concern with context has been expressed in health systems and public health research as part of what has been called the ‘complexity turn’ [ 1 ]: a recognition that many of the most enduring challenges for developing an evidence base require a consideration of system-level effects [ 1 ] and the conceptualisation of interventions as interruptions in systems [ 19 ].

The case study approach is widely recognised as offering an invaluable resource for understanding the dynamic and evolving influence of context on complex, system-level interventions [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Empirically, case studies can directly inform assessments of where, when, how and for whom interventions might be successfully implemented, by helping to specify the necessary and sufficient conditions under which interventions might have effects and to consolidate learning on how interdependencies, emergence and unpredictability can be managed to achieve and sustain desired effects. Case study research has the potential to address four objectives for improving research and reporting of context recently set out by guidance on taking account of context in population health research [ 24 ], that is to (1) improve the appropriateness of intervention development for specific contexts, (2) improve understanding of ‘how’ interventions work, (3) better understand how and why impacts vary across contexts and (4) ensure reports of intervention studies are most useful for decision-makers and researchers.

However, evaluations of complex healthcare interventions have arguably not exploited the full potential of case study research and can learn much from other disciplines. For evaluative research, exploratory case studies have had a traditional role of providing data on ‘process’, or initial ‘hypothesis-generating’ scoping, but might also have an increasing salience for explanatory aims. Across the social and political sciences, different kinds of case studies are undertaken to meet diverse aims (description, exploration or explanation) and across different scales (from small N qualitative studies that aim to elucidate processes, or provide thick description, to more systematic techniques designed for medium-to-large N cases).

Case studies with explanatory aims vary in terms of their positioning within mixed-methods projects, with designs including (but not restricted to) (1) single N of 1 studies of interventions in specific contexts, where the overall design is a case study that may incorporate one or more (randomised or not) comparisons over time and between variables within the case; (2) a series of cases conducted or synthesised to provide explanation from variations between cases; and (3) case studies of particular settings within RCT or quasi-experimental designs to explore variation in effects or implementation.

Detailed qualitative research (typically done as ‘case studies’ within process evaluations) provides evidence for the plausibility of mechanisms [ 25 ], offering theoretical generalisations for how interventions may function under different conditions. Although RCT designs reduce many threats to internal validity, the mechanisms of effect remain opaque, particularly when the causal pathways between ‘intervention’ and ‘effect’ are long and potentially non-linear: case study research has a more fundamental role here, in providing detailed observational evidence for causal claims [ 26 ] as well as producing a rich, nuanced picture of tensions and multiple perspectives [ 8 ].

Longitudinal or cross-case analysis may be best suited for evidence generation in system-level evaluative research. Turner [ 27 ], for instance, reflecting on the complex processes in major system change, has argued for the need for methods that integrate learning across cases, to develop theoretical knowledge that would enable inferences beyond the single case, and to develop generalisable theory about organisational and structural change in health systems. Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) [ 28 ] is one such formal method for deriving causal claims, using set theory mathematics to integrate data from empirical case studies to answer questions about the configurations of causal pathways linking conditions to outcomes [ 29 , 30 ].

Nonetheless, the single N case study, too, provides opportunities for theoretical development [ 31 ], and theoretical generalisation or analytical refinement [ 32 ]. How ‘the case’ and ‘context’ are conceptualised is crucial here. Findings from the single case may seem to be confined to its intrinsic particularities in a specific and distinct context [ 33 ]. However, if such context is viewed as exemplifying wider social and political forces, the single case can be ‘telling’, rather than ‘typical’, and offer insight into a wider issue [ 34 ]. Internal comparisons within the case can offer rich possibilities for logical inferences about causation [ 17 ]. Further, case studies of any size can be used for theory testing through refutation [ 22 ]. The potential lies, then, in utilising the strengths and plurality of case study to support theory-driven research within different methodological paradigms.

Evaluation research in health has much to learn from a range of social sciences where case study methodology has been used to develop various kinds of causal inference. For instance, Gerring [ 35 ] expands on the within-case variations utilised to make causal claims. For Gerring [ 35 ], case studies come into their own with regard to invariant or strong causal claims (such as X is a necessary and/or sufficient condition for Y) rather than for probabilistic causal claims. For the latter (where experimental methods might have an advantage in estimating effect sizes), case studies offer evidence on mechanisms: from observations of X affecting Y, from process tracing or from pattern matching. Case studies also support the study of emergent causation, that is, the multiple interacting properties that account for particular and unexpected outcomes in complex systems, such as in healthcare [ 8 ].

Finally, efficacy (or beliefs about efficacy) is not the only contributor to intervention uptake, with a range of organisational and policy contingencies affecting whether an intervention is likely to be rolled out in practice. Case study research is, therefore, invaluable for learning about contextual contingencies and identifying the conditions necessary for interventions to become normalised (i.e. implemented routinely) in practice [ 36 ].

The challenges in exploiting evidence from case study research

At present, there are significant challenges in exploiting the benefits of case study research in evaluative health research, which relate to status, definition and reporting. Case study research has been marginalised at the bottom of an evidence hierarchy, seen to offer little by way of explanatory power, if nonetheless useful for adding descriptive data on process or providing useful illustrations for policymakers [ 37 ]. This is an opportune moment to revisit this low status. As health researchers are increasingly charged with evaluating ‘natural experiments’—the use of face masks in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic being a recent example [ 38 ]—rather than interventions that take place in settings that can be controlled, research approaches using methods to strengthen causal inference that does not require randomisation become more relevant.

A second challenge for improving the use of case study evidence in evaluative health research is that, as we have seen, what is meant by ‘case study’ varies widely, not only across but also within disciplines. There is indeed little consensus amongst methodologists as to how to define ‘a case study’. Definitions focus, variously, on small sample size or lack of control over the intervention (e.g. [ 39 ] p194), on in-depth study and context [ 40 , 41 ], on the logic of inference used [ 35 ] or on distinct research strategies which incorporate a number of methods to address questions of ‘how’ and ‘why’ [ 42 ]. Moreover, definitions developed for specific disciplines do not capture the range of ways in which case study research is carried out across disciplines. Multiple definitions of case study reflect the richness and diversity of the approach. However, evidence suggests that a lack of consensus across methodologists results in some of the limitations of published reports of empirical case studies [ 43 , 44 ]. Hyett and colleagues [ 43 ], for instance, reviewing reports in qualitative journals, found little match between methodological definitions of case study research and how authors used the term.

This raises the third challenge we identify that case study reports are typically not written in ways that are accessible or useful for the evaluation research community and policymakers. Case studies may not appear in journals widely read by those in the health sciences, either because space constraints preclude the reporting of rich, thick descriptions, or because of the reported lack of willingness of some biomedical journals to publish research that uses qualitative methods [ 45 ], signalling the persistence of the aforementioned evidence hierarchy. Where they do, however, the term ‘case study’ is used to indicate, interchangeably, a qualitative study, an N of 1 sample, or a multi-method, in-depth analysis of one example from a population of phenomena. Definitions of what constitutes the ‘case’ are frequently lacking and appear to be used as a synonym for the settings in which the research is conducted. Despite offering insights for evaluation, the primary aims may not have been evaluative, so the implications may not be explicitly drawn out. Indeed, some case study reports might properly be aiming for thick description without necessarily seeking to inform about context or causality.

Acknowledging plurality and developing guidance

We recognise that definitional and methodological plurality is not only inevitable, but also a necessary and creative reflection of the very different epistemological and disciplinary origins of health researchers, and the aims they have in doing and reporting case study research. Indeed, to provide some clarity, Thomas [ 46 ] has suggested a typology of subject/purpose/approach/process for classifying aims (e.g. evaluative or exploratory), sample rationale and selection and methods for data generation of case studies. We also recognise that the diversity of methods used in case study research, and the necessary focus on narrative reporting, does not lend itself to straightforward development of formal quality or reporting criteria.

Existing checklists for reporting case study research from the social sciences—for example Lincoln and Guba’s [ 47 ] and Stake’s [ 33 ]—are primarily orientated to the quality of narrative produced, and the extent to which they encapsulate thick description, rather than the more pragmatic issues of implications for intervention effects. Those designed for clinical settings, such as the CARE (CAse REports) guidelines, provide specific reporting guidelines for medical case reports about single, or small groups of patients [ 48 ], not for case study research.

The Design of Case Study Research in Health Care (DESCARTE) model [ 44 ] suggests a series of questions to be asked of a case study researcher (including clarity about the philosophy underpinning their research), study design (with a focus on case definition) and analysis (to improve process). The model resembles toolkits for enhancing the quality and robustness of qualitative and mixed-methods research reporting, and it is usefully open-ended and non-prescriptive. However, even if it does include some reflections on context, the model does not fully address aspects of context, logic and causal inference that are perhaps most relevant for evaluative research in health.

Hence, for evaluative research where the aim is to report empirical findings in ways that are intended to be pragmatically useful for health policy and practice, this may be an opportune time to consider how to best navigate plurality around what is (minimally) important to report when publishing empirical case studies, especially with regards to the complex relationships between context and interventions, information that case study research is well placed to provide.

The conventional scientific quest for certainty, predictability and linear causality (maximised in RCT designs) has to be augmented by the study of uncertainty, unpredictability and emergent causality [ 8 ] in complex systems. This will require methodological pluralism, and openness to broadening the evidence base to better understand both causality in and the transferability of system change intervention [ 14 , 20 , 23 , 25 ]. Case study research evidence is essential, yet is currently under exploited in the health sciences. If evaluative health research is to move beyond the current impasse on methods for understanding interventions as interruptions in complex systems, we need to consider in more detail how researchers can conduct and report empirical case studies which do aim to elucidate the contextual factors which interact with interventions to produce particular effects. To this end, supported by the UK’s Medical Research Council, we are embracing the challenge to develop guidance for case study researchers studying complex interventions. Following a meta-narrative review of the literature, we are planning a Delphi study to inform guidance that will, at minimum, cover the value of case study research for evaluating the interrelationship between context and complex system-level interventions; for situating and defining ‘the case’, and generalising from case studies; as well as provide specific guidance on conducting, analysing and reporting case study research. Our hope is that such guidance can support researchers evaluating interventions in complex systems to better exploit the diversity and richness of case study research.

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Abbreviations

Qualitative comparative analysis

Quasi-experimental design

Randomised controlled trial

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This work was funded by the Medical Research Council - MRC Award MR/S014632/1 HCS: Case study, Context and Complex interventions (TRIPLE C). SP was additionally funded by the University of Oxford's Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF).

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Paparini, S., Green, J., Papoutsi, C. et al. Case study research for better evaluations of complex interventions: rationale and challenges. BMC Med 18 , 301 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-020-01777-6

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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

• Annotated Bibliography
• Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
• Group Presentations
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Leading a Class Discussion
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Works
• Writing a Case Analysis Paper
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Reflective Paper
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Generative AI and Writing
• Acknowledgments

A case study research paper examines a person, place, event, condition, phenomenon, or other type of subject of analysis in order to extrapolate  key themes and results that help predict future trends, illuminate previously hidden issues that can be applied to practice, and/or provide a means for understanding an important research problem with greater clarity. A case study research paper usually examines a single subject of analysis, but case study papers can also be designed as a comparative investigation that shows relationships between two or more subjects. The methods used to study a case can rest within a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method investigative paradigm.

Case Studies. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010 ; “What is a Case Study?” In Swanborn, Peter G. Case Study Research: What, Why and How? London: SAGE, 2010.

How to Approach Writing a Case Study Research Paper

General information about how to choose a topic to investigate can be found under the " Choosing a Research Problem " tab in the Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper writing guide. Review this page because it may help you identify a subject of analysis that can be investigated using a case study design.

However, identifying a case to investigate involves more than choosing the research problem . A case study encompasses a problem contextualized around the application of in-depth analysis, interpretation, and discussion, often resulting in specific recommendations for action or for improving existing conditions. As Seawright and Gerring note, practical considerations such as time and access to information can influence case selection, but these issues should not be the sole factors used in describing the methodological justification for identifying a particular case to study. Given this, selecting a case includes considering the following:

• The case represents an unusual or atypical example of a research problem that requires more in-depth analysis? Cases often represent a topic that rests on the fringes of prior investigations because the case may provide new ways of understanding the research problem. For example, if the research problem is to identify strategies to improve policies that support girl's access to secondary education in predominantly Muslim nations, you could consider using Azerbaijan as a case study rather than selecting a more obvious nation in the Middle East. Doing so may reveal important new insights into recommending how governments in other predominantly Muslim nations can formulate policies that support improved access to education for girls.
• The case provides important insight or illuminate a previously hidden problem? In-depth analysis of a case can be based on the hypothesis that the case study will reveal trends or issues that have not been exposed in prior research or will reveal new and important implications for practice. For example, anecdotal evidence may suggest drug use among homeless veterans is related to their patterns of travel throughout the day. Assuming prior studies have not looked at individual travel choices as a way to study access to illicit drug use, a case study that observes a homeless veteran could reveal how issues of personal mobility choices facilitate regular access to illicit drugs. Note that it is important to conduct a thorough literature review to ensure that your assumption about the need to reveal new insights or previously hidden problems is valid and evidence-based.
• The case challenges and offers a counter-point to prevailing assumptions? Over time, research on any given topic can fall into a trap of developing assumptions based on outdated studies that are still applied to new or changing conditions or the idea that something should simply be accepted as "common sense," even though the issue has not been thoroughly tested in current practice. A case study analysis may offer an opportunity to gather evidence that challenges prevailing assumptions about a research problem and provide a new set of recommendations applied to practice that have not been tested previously. For example, perhaps there has been a long practice among scholars to apply a particular theory in explaining the relationship between two subjects of analysis. Your case could challenge this assumption by applying an innovative theoretical framework [perhaps borrowed from another discipline] to explore whether this approach offers new ways of understanding the research problem. Taking a contrarian stance is one of the most important ways that new knowledge and understanding develops from existing literature.
• The case provides an opportunity to pursue action leading to the resolution of a problem? Another way to think about choosing a case to study is to consider how the results from investigating a particular case may result in findings that reveal ways in which to resolve an existing or emerging problem. For example, studying the case of an unforeseen incident, such as a fatal accident at a railroad crossing, can reveal hidden issues that could be applied to preventative measures that contribute to reducing the chance of accidents in the future. In this example, a case study investigating the accident could lead to a better understanding of where to strategically locate additional signals at other railroad crossings so as to better warn drivers of an approaching train, particularly when visibility is hindered by heavy rain, fog, or at night.
• The case offers a new direction in future research? A case study can be used as a tool for an exploratory investigation that highlights the need for further research about the problem. A case can be used when there are few studies that help predict an outcome or that establish a clear understanding about how best to proceed in addressing a problem. For example, after conducting a thorough literature review [very important!], you discover that little research exists showing the ways in which women contribute to promoting water conservation in rural communities of east central Africa. A case study of how women contribute to saving water in a rural village of Uganda can lay the foundation for understanding the need for more thorough research that documents how women in their roles as cooks and family caregivers think about water as a valuable resource within their community. This example of a case study could also point to the need for scholars to build new theoretical frameworks around the topic [e.g., applying feminist theories of work and family to the issue of water conservation].

Eisenhardt, Kathleen M. “Building Theories from Case Study Research.” Academy of Management Review 14 (October 1989): 532-550; Emmel, Nick. Sampling and Choosing Cases in Qualitative Research: A Realist Approach . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2013; Gerring, John. “What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good for?” American Political Science Review 98 (May 2004): 341-354; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Seawright, Jason and John Gerring. "Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research." Political Research Quarterly 61 (June 2008): 294-308.

Structure and Writing Style

The purpose of a paper in the social sciences designed around a case study is to thoroughly investigate a subject of analysis in order to reveal a new understanding about the research problem and, in so doing, contributing new knowledge to what is already known from previous studies. In applied social sciences disciplines [e.g., education, social work, public administration, etc.], case studies may also be used to reveal best practices, highlight key programs, or investigate interesting aspects of professional work.

In general, the structure of a case study research paper is not all that different from a standard college-level research paper. However, there are subtle differences you should be aware of. Here are the key elements to organizing and writing a case study research paper.

I.  Introduction

As with any research paper, your introduction should serve as a roadmap for your readers to ascertain the scope and purpose of your study . The introduction to a case study research paper, however, should not only describe the research problem and its significance, but you should also succinctly describe why the case is being used and how it relates to addressing the problem. The two elements should be linked. With this in mind, a good introduction answers these four questions:

• What is being studied? Describe the research problem and describe the subject of analysis [the case] you have chosen to address the problem. Explain how they are linked and what elements of the case will help to expand knowledge and understanding about the problem.
• Why is this topic important to investigate? Describe the significance of the research problem and state why a case study design and the subject of analysis that the paper is designed around is appropriate in addressing the problem.
• What did we know about this topic before I did this study? Provide background that helps lead the reader into the more in-depth literature review to follow. If applicable, summarize prior case study research applied to the research problem and why it fails to adequately address the problem. Describe why your case will be useful. If no prior case studies have been used to address the research problem, explain why you have selected this subject of analysis.
• How will this study advance new knowledge or new ways of understanding? Explain why your case study will be suitable in helping to expand knowledge and understanding about the research problem.

Each of these questions should be addressed in no more than a few paragraphs. Exceptions to this can be when you are addressing a complex research problem or subject of analysis that requires more in-depth background information.

II.  Literature Review

The literature review for a case study research paper is generally structured the same as it is for any college-level research paper. The difference, however, is that the literature review is focused on providing background information and  enabling historical interpretation of the subject of analysis in relation to the research problem the case is intended to address . This includes synthesizing studies that help to:

• Place relevant works in the context of their contribution to understanding the case study being investigated . This would involve summarizing studies that have used a similar subject of analysis to investigate the research problem. If there is literature using the same or a very similar case to study, you need to explain why duplicating past research is important [e.g., conditions have changed; prior studies were conducted long ago, etc.].
• Describe the relationship each work has to the others under consideration that informs the reader why this case is applicable . Your literature review should include a description of any works that support using the case to investigate the research problem and the underlying research questions.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research using the case study . If applicable, review any research that has examined the research problem using a different research design. Explain how your use of a case study design may reveal new knowledge or a new perspective or that can redirect research in an important new direction.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies . This refers to synthesizing any literature that points to unresolved issues of concern about the research problem and describing how the subject of analysis that forms the case study can help resolve these existing contradictions.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research . Your review should examine any literature that lays a foundation for understanding why your case study design and the subject of analysis around which you have designed your study may reveal a new way of approaching the research problem or offer a perspective that points to the need for additional research.
• Expose any gaps that exist in the literature that the case study could help to fill . Summarize any literature that not only shows how your subject of analysis contributes to understanding the research problem, but how your case contributes to a new way of understanding the problem that prior research has failed to do.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important!] . Collectively, your literature review should always place your case study within the larger domain of prior research about the problem. The overarching purpose of reviewing pertinent literature in a case study paper is to demonstrate that you have thoroughly identified and synthesized prior studies in relation to explaining the relevance of the case in addressing the research problem.

III.  Method

In this section, you explain why you selected a particular case [i.e., subject of analysis] and the strategy you used to identify and ultimately decide that your case was appropriate in addressing the research problem. The way you describe the methods used varies depending on the type of subject of analysis that constitutes your case study.

If your subject of analysis is an incident or event . In the social and behavioral sciences, the event or incident that represents the case to be studied is usually bounded by time and place, with a clear beginning and end and with an identifiable location or position relative to its surroundings. The subject of analysis can be a rare or critical event or it can focus on a typical or regular event. The purpose of studying a rare event is to illuminate new ways of thinking about the broader research problem or to test a hypothesis. Critical incident case studies must describe the method by which you identified the event and explain the process by which you determined the validity of this case to inform broader perspectives about the research problem or to reveal new findings. However, the event does not have to be a rare or uniquely significant to support new thinking about the research problem or to challenge an existing hypothesis. For example, Walo, Bull, and Breen conducted a case study to identify and evaluate the direct and indirect economic benefits and costs of a local sports event in the City of Lismore, New South Wales, Australia. The purpose of their study was to provide new insights from measuring the impact of a typical local sports event that prior studies could not measure well because they focused on large "mega-events." Whether the event is rare or not, the methods section should include an explanation of the following characteristics of the event: a) when did it take place; b) what were the underlying circumstances leading to the event; and, c) what were the consequences of the event in relation to the research problem.

If your subject of analysis is a person. Explain why you selected this particular individual to be studied and describe what experiences they have had that provide an opportunity to advance new understandings about the research problem. Mention any background about this person which might help the reader understand the significance of their experiences that make them worthy of study. This includes describing the relationships this person has had with other people, institutions, and/or events that support using them as the subject for a case study research paper. It is particularly important to differentiate the person as the subject of analysis from others and to succinctly explain how the person relates to examining the research problem [e.g., why is one politician in a particular local election used to show an increase in voter turnout from any other candidate running in the election]. Note that these issues apply to a specific group of people used as a case study unit of analysis [e.g., a classroom of students].

If your subject of analysis is a place. In general, a case study that investigates a place suggests a subject of analysis that is unique or special in some way and that this uniqueness can be used to build new understanding or knowledge about the research problem. A case study of a place must not only describe its various attributes relevant to the research problem [e.g., physical, social, historical, cultural, economic, political], but you must state the method by which you determined that this place will illuminate new understandings about the research problem. It is also important to articulate why a particular place as the case for study is being used if similar places also exist [i.e., if you are studying patterns of homeless encampments of veterans in open spaces, explain why you are studying Echo Park in Los Angeles rather than Griffith Park?]. If applicable, describe what type of human activity involving this place makes it a good choice to study [e.g., prior research suggests Echo Park has more homeless veterans].

If your subject of analysis is a phenomenon. A phenomenon refers to a fact, occurrence, or circumstance that can be studied or observed but with the cause or explanation to be in question. In this sense, a phenomenon that forms your subject of analysis can encompass anything that can be observed or presumed to exist but is not fully understood. In the social and behavioral sciences, the case usually focuses on human interaction within a complex physical, social, economic, cultural, or political system. For example, the phenomenon could be the observation that many vehicles used by ISIS fighters are small trucks with English language advertisements on them. The research problem could be that ISIS fighters are difficult to combat because they are highly mobile. The research questions could be how and by what means are these vehicles used by ISIS being supplied to the militants and how might supply lines to these vehicles be cut off? How might knowing the suppliers of these trucks reveal larger networks of collaborators and financial support? A case study of a phenomenon most often encompasses an in-depth analysis of a cause and effect that is grounded in an interactive relationship between people and their environment in some way.

NOTE:   The choice of the case or set of cases to study cannot appear random. Evidence that supports the method by which you identified and chose your subject of analysis should clearly support investigation of the research problem and linked to key findings from your literature review. Be sure to cite any studies that helped you determine that the case you chose was appropriate for examining the problem.

IV.  Discussion

The main elements of your discussion section are generally the same as any research paper, but centered around interpreting and drawing conclusions about the key findings from your analysis of the case study. Note that a general social sciences research paper may contain a separate section to report findings. However, in a paper designed around a case study, it is common to combine a description of the results with the discussion about their implications. The objectives of your discussion section should include the following:

Reiterate the Research Problem/State the Major Findings Briefly reiterate the research problem you are investigating and explain why the subject of analysis around which you designed the case study were used. You should then describe the findings revealed from your study of the case using direct, declarative, and succinct proclamation of the study results. Highlight any findings that were unexpected or especially profound.

Explain the Meaning of the Findings and Why They are Important Systematically explain the meaning of your case study findings and why you believe they are important. Begin this part of the section by repeating what you consider to be your most important or surprising finding first, then systematically review each finding. Be sure to thoroughly extrapolate what your analysis of the case can tell the reader about situations or conditions beyond the actual case that was studied while, at the same time, being careful not to misconstrue or conflate a finding that undermines the external validity of your conclusions.

Relate the Findings to Similar Studies No study in the social sciences is so novel or possesses such a restricted focus that it has absolutely no relation to previously published research. The discussion section should relate your case study results to those found in other studies, particularly if questions raised from prior studies served as the motivation for choosing your subject of analysis. This is important because comparing and contrasting the findings of other studies helps support the overall importance of your results and it highlights how and in what ways your case study design and the subject of analysis differs from prior research about the topic.

Consider Alternative Explanations of the Findings Remember that the purpose of social science research is to discover and not to prove. When writing the discussion section, you should carefully consider all possible explanations revealed by the case study results, rather than just those that fit your hypothesis or prior assumptions and biases. Be alert to what the in-depth analysis of the case may reveal about the research problem, including offering a contrarian perspective to what scholars have stated in prior research if that is how the findings can be interpreted from your case.

Acknowledge the Study's Limitations You can state the study's limitations in the conclusion section of your paper but describing the limitations of your subject of analysis in the discussion section provides an opportunity to identify the limitations and explain why they are not significant. This part of the discussion section should also note any unanswered questions or issues your case study could not address. More detailed information about how to document any limitations to your research can be found here .

Suggest Areas for Further Research Although your case study may offer important insights about the research problem, there are likely additional questions related to the problem that remain unanswered or findings that unexpectedly revealed themselves as a result of your in-depth analysis of the case. Be sure that the recommendations for further research are linked to the research problem and that you explain why your recommendations are valid in other contexts and based on the original assumptions of your study.

V.  Conclusion

As with any research paper, you should summarize your conclusion in clear, simple language; emphasize how the findings from your case study differs from or supports prior research and why. Do not simply reiterate the discussion section. Provide a synthesis of key findings presented in the paper to show how these converge to address the research problem. If you haven't already done so in the discussion section, be sure to document the limitations of your case study and any need for further research.

The function of your paper's conclusion is to: 1) reiterate the main argument supported by the findings from your case study; 2) state clearly the context, background, and necessity of pursuing the research problem using a case study design in relation to an issue, controversy, or a gap found from reviewing the literature; and, 3) provide a place to persuasively and succinctly restate the significance of your research problem, given that the reader has now been presented with in-depth information about the topic.

Consider the following points to help ensure your conclusion is appropriate:

• If the argument or purpose of your paper is complex, you may need to summarize these points for your reader.
• If prior to your conclusion, you have not yet explained the significance of your findings or if you are proceeding inductively, use the conclusion of your paper to describe your main points and explain their significance.
• Move from a detailed to a general level of consideration of the case study's findings that returns the topic to the context provided by the introduction or within a new context that emerges from your case study findings.

Note that, depending on the discipline you are writing in or the preferences of your professor, the concluding paragraph may contain your final reflections on the evidence presented as it applies to practice or on the essay's central research problem. However, the nature of being introspective about the subject of analysis you have investigated will depend on whether you are explicitly asked to express your observations in this way.

Problems to Avoid

Overgeneralization One of the goals of a case study is to lay a foundation for understanding broader trends and issues applied to similar circumstances. However, be careful when drawing conclusions from your case study. They must be evidence-based and grounded in the results of the study; otherwise, it is merely speculation. Looking at a prior example, it would be incorrect to state that a factor in improving girls access to education in Azerbaijan and the policy implications this may have for improving access in other Muslim nations is due to girls access to social media if there is no documentary evidence from your case study to indicate this. There may be anecdotal evidence that retention rates were better for girls who were engaged with social media, but this observation would only point to the need for further research and would not be a definitive finding if this was not a part of your original research agenda.

Failure to Document Limitations No case is going to reveal all that needs to be understood about a research problem. Therefore, just as you have to clearly state the limitations of a general research study , you must describe the specific limitations inherent in the subject of analysis. For example, the case of studying how women conceptualize the need for water conservation in a village in Uganda could have limited application in other cultural contexts or in areas where fresh water from rivers or lakes is plentiful and, therefore, conservation is understood more in terms of managing access rather than preserving access to a scarce resource.

Failure to Extrapolate All Possible Implications Just as you don't want to over-generalize from your case study findings, you also have to be thorough in the consideration of all possible outcomes or recommendations derived from your findings. If you do not, your reader may question the validity of your analysis, particularly if you failed to document an obvious outcome from your case study research. For example, in the case of studying the accident at the railroad crossing to evaluate where and what types of warning signals should be located, you failed to take into consideration speed limit signage as well as warning signals. When designing your case study, be sure you have thoroughly addressed all aspects of the problem and do not leave gaps in your analysis that leave the reader questioning the results.

Case Studies. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Gerring, John. Case Study Research: Principles and Practices . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007; Merriam, Sharan B. Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education . Rev. ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1998; Miller, Lisa L. “The Use of Case Studies in Law and Social Science Research.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 14 (2018): TBD; Mills, Albert J., Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Putney, LeAnn Grogan. "Case Study." In Encyclopedia of Research Design , Neil J. Salkind, editor. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010), pp. 116-120; Simons, Helen. Case Study Research in Practice . London: SAGE Publications, 2009;  Kratochwill,  Thomas R. and Joel R. Levin, editors. Single-Case Research Design and Analysis: New Development for Psychology and Education .  Hilldsale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992; Swanborn, Peter G. Case Study Research: What, Why and How? London : SAGE, 2010; Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods . 6th edition. Los Angeles, CA, SAGE Publications, 2014; Walo, Maree, Adrian Bull, and Helen Breen. “Achieving Economic Benefits at Local Events: A Case Study of a Local Sports Event.” Festival Management and Event Tourism 4 (1996): 95-106.

Writing Tip

At Least Five Misconceptions about Case Study Research

Social science case studies are often perceived as limited in their ability to create new knowledge because they are not randomly selected and findings cannot be generalized to larger populations. Flyvbjerg examines five misunderstandings about case study research and systematically "corrects" each one. To quote, these are:

Misunderstanding 1 :  General, theoretical [context-independent] knowledge is more valuable than concrete, practical [context-dependent] knowledge. Misunderstanding 2 :  One cannot generalize on the basis of an individual case; therefore, the case study cannot contribute to scientific development. Misunderstanding 3 :  The case study is most useful for generating hypotheses; that is, in the first stage of a total research process, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building. Misunderstanding 4 :  The case study contains a bias toward verification, that is, a tendency to confirm the researcher’s preconceived notions. Misunderstanding 5 :  It is often difficult to summarize and develop general propositions and theories on the basis of specific case studies [p. 221].

While writing your paper, think introspectively about how you addressed these misconceptions because to do so can help you strengthen the validity and reliability of your research by clarifying issues of case selection, the testing and challenging of existing assumptions, the interpretation of key findings, and the summation of case outcomes. Think of a case study research paper as a complete, in-depth narrative about the specific properties and key characteristics of your subject of analysis applied to the research problem.

Flyvbjerg, Bent. “Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 12 (April 2006): 219-245.

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Challenges of a Case Study

Introduction.

It is universally accepted that an effective piece of writing is one that convinces its readers to accept the point of view that it presents. The use of case study in their writing helps researchers to substantiate their views and research outcomes by relating them with case studies, which are examples from real life. The use if case studies, facilitates understanding and exploration of the complex issues in multidisciplinary areas of knowledge (Zainal, 2007).

The case study approach is useful in getting a deep understanding of real-life phenomena; it is a well-designed research plan, which can be widely used and is well accepted among scholars and by society. However, it is not as easy to define a case study as it might seem. In a later section of this chapter, various definitions of the case study method given by various authors from a variety of perspectives have been described in their chronological order. Besides the above significance of the use of case study in research, there are some disadvantages attaching to this method, which have given reason for challenging the scope of application of case study in research.

In addition to the above advantages and the disadvantages of the method itself, there are some advantages and disadvantages that attach to the selection of the case study approach as a research method. While the first, the significance of case study and its implementation as a research method is the major subject to be evaluated in the preliminary studies; the second significant feature to be considered carefully is the selection of a particular case study and the level of its impact as evidence of the validity of the conclusions from the research. Using case studies is not an independent exercise in validation, but an interlinked, multi-perspective and dynamic analysis-based method. These are significant aspects of the use of case study to be considered, because the suitability of the case study method is questioned on the basis of the scope of its applicability. There always are challenges in the selection of a case study. For instance, one of the simpler challenges when applying the case study is that not only the perspectives of the objects of the research need to be aligned with those in the case study, but also the interaction of those objects with their environment and the other groups of relevant objects must also be taken into account.

Besides the applications of case study-based method in research, there are several other areas where the case studies have been implemented widely, including law, policy, and business (Crowe et al., 2011). Mostly, the sociologists, psychologists, and related professionals and researchers adopt this approach on the currently emerging social challenges, including illiteracy, unemployment, poverty, drug abuse, and others (Grassel & Kubat, 2006).

Further, researchers’ attitudes toward case study and the applications of a case study in research are also significant areas to be considered. The perseverance of the researchers in meeting the challenges to their research findings, and their skill at understanding the factors that underly the challenges to the scope of the applicability of case study, are also crucial and deserve detailed analysis. Whether the case study is used in qualitative research or quantitative research, there may remain certain aspects that the researcher neglected to address. Thus, how the researcher adopted case study methodology with a positive effect on the ultimate solution would adequately address and mitigate the challenges to the use of case study. Therefore, considering the numerous reasons why case study approach is adopted and challenged, it is the need of the time to identify, explore and analyze the challenges to a case study in the field of research.

Key Terms in this Chapter

Ethnographic : A method to study the population characteristics in their own environment by conducting interviews and observations.

Quantitative Research : A systematic and empirical investigation applied in research methods via computational, mathematical and statistical analysis.

Bias : A disproportionate prejudice for or against one thing.

Generalization : An act of the explanation that involves extracting conclusion from observations in particular areas.

Triangulation : A method applied in research to involve data from different sources to increase the study validity.

Qualitative Research : An exploratory research aims to understand the reasons and opinions to provide insight into the problem in order to develop a hypothesis.

Stakeholder : A person who has interest in a particular activity.

Complete Chapter List

Welcome To Open Case Studies

Connecting you with real-world public health data.

The Open Case Studies project showcases the possibilities of what can be achieved when working with real-world data.

Housed in a freely accessible GitHub repository, the project’s self-contained and experiential guides demonstrate the data analysis process and the use of various data science methods, tools, and software in the context of messy, real-world data.

These case studies will empower current and future data scientists to leverage real-world data to solve leading public health challenges.

Who Are Open Case Studies For?

Your experiential guide to the power of data analysis.

The Open Case Studies project provides insights about gathering and working with data for students, instructors, and those with experience in data science or statistical methods at nonprofit organizations and public sector agencies.

Each case study in the project focuses on an important public health topic and introduces methods to provide users with the skills and knowledge for greater legibility, reproducibility, rigor, and flexibility in their own data analyses.

Case Study Bank Overview

Real data on ten public health challenges in the U.S.

The following in-depth case studies use real data and focus on five areas of public health that are particularly pressing in the United States.

Vaping Behaviors in American Youth

This case study explores the trends of tobacco product usage among American youths surveyed in the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) from 2015-2019. It demonstrates how to use survey data and code books and provides an introduction to writing functions to wrangle similar but slightly different data repetitively. The case study introduces packages for using survey weighting and survey design to perform an analysis to compare vaping product usage among different groups, and covers how to use a logistic regression to compare groups for a variable that is binary (such as true or false — in this case it was using vaping products or not). This case study also covers how to make visualizations of multiple groups over time with confidence interval error bars.

Opioids in the United States

This case study examines the number of opioid pills (specifically oxycodone and hydrocodone, as they are the top two misused opioids) shipped to pharmacies and practitioners at the county-level around the United States from 2006 to 2014 using data from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). This case study demonstrates how to get data from a source called an application programming interface (API). It explores why and how to normalize data, as well as why and how to potentially stratify or redefine groups. It also shows how to compare two independent groups when the data is not normally distributed using a test called the Wilcoxon rank sum test (also called the Mann Whitney U test) and how to add confidence intervals to plots (using a method called bootstrapping).

Disparities in Youth Disconnection

This case study focuses on rates of youth (people between 16-24) disconnection (those who are neither working nor in school) among different racial, ethnic and gender subgroups to identify subgroups that may be particularly vulnerable. It demonstrates that deeper inspection of subgroups yields some differences that are not otherwise discernable, how to import data from a PDF using screenshots of sections of the PDF, and how to use the Mann-Kendall trend test to test for the presence of a consistent direction in the relationship of disconnection rates with time. This case study also shows how to make a visualization that stylistically matches that of an existing report, how to add images to plots, and how to create effective bar plots for multiple comparisons across several groups.

Mental Health of American Youth

This case study investigates how the rate of self-reported symptoms of major depressive episodes (MDE) has changed over time among American youth (age 12-17) from 2004-2018. It describes the impact of self-reporting bias in surveys, how to get data directly from a website, as well as how to compare changes in the frequency of a variable between two groups using a chi-squared test to determine if two variables are independent (in this case if the sex of the students influenced the frequency of reported MDE symptoms in 2004 and 2018). This case study also demonstrates how to create direct labels on visualizations with many groups across time, as well as how to create an animated gif.

Exploring CO2 Emissions Across Time

This case study investigates how CO2 emissions have changed since the 1700s and how the level of emissions has compared for different countries around the world. It explores how yearly average temperature and the number of natural disasters in the United States has changed over time and provides an introduction for examining if two sets of data are correlated with one another. This case study also goes into great detail about how to make what are called heatmaps and other plots to visualize multiple groups over time. This includes adding labels directly to lines on plots with multiple lines.

Predicting Annual Air Pollution

This case study uses machine learning methods to predict annual air pollution levels spatially within the United States based on data about population density, urbanization, road density, as well as satellite pollution data and chemical modeling data among other predictors. Machine learning methods are used to predict air pollution levels when traditional monitoring systems are not available in a particular area or when there is not enough spatial granularity with current monitoring systems. The case study also demonstrates how to visualize data using maps.

Exploring Global Patterns of Obesity Across Rural and Urban Regions

This case study compares average Body Mass Index measurements for males and females from rural and urban regions from over 200 countries around the world, with a particular emphasis on the United States. It provides a thorough introduction to wrangling data from a PDF, how to compare two paired groups using the t test and the nonparametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test using R programming, and how to make visualizations of group comparisons that emphasize a particular subset of the data.

Exploring Global Patterns of Dietary Behaviors Associated with Health Risk

This case study investigates the consumption of dietary factors associated with health risk among males and females from over 200 countries around the world, with a particular emphasis on the United States. It demonstrates how to wrangle data from a PDF; how to combine data from two different sources; how to compare two paired groups and multiple paired groups using t-tests, ANOVA, and linear regression; and how to create visualizations of several groups and how to combine plots together with very different scales.

Influence of Multicollinearity on Measured Impact of Right-To-Carry Gun Laws

This case study focuses on two well-known studies that evaluated the influence of right-to-carry gun laws on violent crime rates. It demonstrates a phenomenon called multicollinearity, where explanatory variables that can predict one another can lead to aberrant and unstable findings; how to make visualizations with labels, such as arrows or equations; and how to combine multiple plots together.

School Shootings in the United States

This case study illustrates ways to communicate trends in a dataset about the number and characteristics of school shooting events for students in grades K-12 in the United States since 1970. It demonstrates how to create a dashboard, which is a website that shows patterns in a dataset in a concise manner; how to import data from a Google Sheets document; how to create interactive tables and maps; and how to properly calculate percentages for data when there are missing values.

Which Case Study Is Right For Me?

Connecting with the public health data you need.

The Open Case Studies project approaches data in many different ways. The guide below will help connect you with a case study:

Data science projects often start with a question. Here, you may look for case studies that explore a question that is similar to one you are interested in investigating with your data.

How does something change over time?

Investigating how a variable has changed over time can help identify consistent trends.

How do survey responses compare for different groups over time?

Survey data requires special care and attention to the survey design.

How do groups compare?

Public health researchers are often interested to know if one group is more vulnerable than another or if two or more groups are actually different from one another.

How do groups compare over time?

Comparing several groups over time can provide insight into if the change over time is different for different groups.

How do paired groups compare?

Paired groups are those that are not independent in some way. Perhaps you want to know how data from the same person over time compares with that of another person over time, or perhaps you are interested in how something changed in a city before and after an intervention, or perhaps you want to compare groups using data that has structure where there is coupling or matching of data values across samples.

Are certain groups or possibly subgroups more vulnerable?

Understand how to compare subpopulations at a deeper level.

How does something compare across regions?

Often it is useful to investigate if data differs by region, as many environmental, cultural, and political differences can influence public health outcomes.

How can I predict outcomes for new data?

Learn how the data might look next year or for locations that you don’t have data about.

Does this influence my data?

Analyze how a variable influences another variable.

Are these two variables related to one another?

Understand how two variables are related and how strongly they are related to one another.

How can I display this data for others to find and interpret and use easily?

Make it easy for others to find your data, see the major trends in your data, or search for specific values in your data.

Data can come from many different sources, from the more obvious like an excel file to the less obvious like an image or a website. These case studies demonstrate how to use data from a variety of possible sources.

Using data from a PDF or just parts of a PDF can be challenging. You could type the data into a new excel file, but this can result in mistakes and it is difficult to reproduce.

Data are often in CSV files and it is typically easy to import data and work with data in this form. However, sometimes it can be difficult if, for example, the first few lines are structured differently or if you have unusual missing value indicators.

If you find data on a website that doesn’t allow you to download in a convenient way, you can actually directly import the data into R programming language.

This is one of the most common data forms, and it is typically easy to import data and work with data in this form. However, sometimes it can be challenging, especially if you have many files.

You can extract text from image files. This can be useful if, for example, you want to only use certain parts of a PDF.

It is possible to find the data that you need to use from an application programming interface (API).

Google Sheet

You can download data from a Google Sheet, copy and paste it into Excel, or directly import the data into R programming language.

Survey data/Code books

Working with survey data requires special care and attention, and you can do this directly with R programming language.

Multiple files

If you find that you need to import data from multiple files, there is a more efficient way to do so without importing each one by one.

Data wrangling is the process of organizing your data in a more useful format. These case studies explore how to clean, rearrange, reshape, modify, filter, combine, or join your data.

Extracting data from a PDF

Extracting and organizing data from a PDF will make it easier to use.

Geocoding data

The process of assigning relevant latitude and longitude coordinates to data values is called geocoding. This can be helpful (although not always necessary) to create a map of your data.

Recoding data

If you have data values that are confusing and could be changed to something better, or if you want to convert your data to true or false, you might want to consider recoding these values.

Methods of joining data

Sometimes, you obtain data from multiple sources that need to be combined together.

Filtering data

Perhaps you need to filter your data for only specific values for given variables. In other words, you might want to filter census employment data to only values for females who are also Black and live in Connecticut.

Modifying data (normalizing, transforming, scaling etc.)

Sometimes it is difficult to know when or how to normalize data.

Working with text

You can work with, remove, replace, or change words, phrases, letters, numbers, or punctuation marks in your data.

Reshaping data

Sometimes it is useful to shape your data so that you have many columns (for example, when performing certain analyses), however it can be useful at other times (for example, when creating plots) to collapse multiple columns into fewer columns with more rows.

Repetitive process

Sometimes you need to wrangle multiple datasets from different sources in a similar manner.

A picture is worth a thousand words, particularly when it comes to interpreting data. These case studies demonstrate how to make effective visualizations in various contexts. The first ten represent basic visualizations while 11-22 are more advanced.

A table that is easy to interpret

Adding colors or simple graphics can make tables easier to interpret.

Scatter plot

Scatter plots can be a strong option for evaluating the relationship between variables, and especially for evaluating changes in a variable over time.

Line plots are often useful for evaluating changes over time.

Bar plots are a good choice if you want to compare data to a threshold.

Box plots are particularly useful for comparing groups with many data values. They provide information about the spread of the data.

Pie chart/waffle plot

Pie charts or waffle plots can be a strong option when comparing relative percentages.

It can be difficult to visualize multiple groups at simultaneously. In these situations, heat maps can be a great option.

Correlation plots

If you have many variables and need to know if they are correlated to one another, there are methods to efficiently check this.

Visualize missing data

It can be helpful to quickly identify how much of your data is missing (has NA values).

Create a map of your data

Often the best way to interpret regional differences in data is to make a map.

• Advanced Visualizations

Matching a style

If you are working with collaborators, you can make your visualizations match the style of their figures.

Faceted plots allow you to quickly create multiple plots at once

It can be difficult to visualize multiple groups at the same time, so faceted plots are a great option in this situation.

Adding labels directly to plots with many different groups

If you compare many groups over time, for example, it can be difficult to see which line corresponds to which group. Adding labels directly to these lines can be very helpful and negates the need for an overcomplicated legend.

Emphasize a particular group

Sometimes you will have several different groups and you want to highlight a specific group.

Adding annotations to plots

Adding labels, such as thresholds, arrows, or equations, can make it easier for people to interpret your plot.

Add error bars to your plot

Adding error bars can help convey information about the confidence of the estimates in your plots.

Combine multiple plots together

Sometimes it is useful to put a variety of plots together and add text to explain what the plot shows.

Create an interactive plot when you have too many groups to label

If you compare a very large number of groups, it can be difficult to tell what is happening. Often it can help to make the plot interactive so that the user can hover over points or lines to see what they indicate.

Create an interactive map of your data

Sometimes it is easiest to see regional differences by interacting with and exploring an interactive map.

Create an interactive table of your data

Sometimes you might want to be able to search through your data or allow others to easily do so.

Add images to your figures

Including images to a plot, such as a logo, can be a helpful addition.

Create an interactive dashboard/website for your data

Dashboards can quickly convey major trends in a dataset, and they can also allow users to interact with the data to choose what aspects about the data they wish to explore.

To better understand data, it is helpful to use statistical tests. These case studies demonstrate a variety of statistical tests and concepts.

Are two groups different?

Correlation

Are two variables related to one another?

Are multiple groups different?

Linear regression

Would you like to compare groups?

Chi-squared test of independence

Do the frequencies of two groups suggest that they are independent?

Mann-Kendall Trend test

Is there a consistent change over time?

Machine learning

Would you like to predict data?

Calculate percentages with missing data?

Would you like to calculate percentages, but you are missing some data?

About The Project

Learn about the team behind the Open Case Studies project.

As part of the larger Open Case Studies project (OCS) at opencasestudies.org , these case studies were developed for and funded by the Bloomberg American Health Initiative. The OCS project is made up of a team of researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH).

Let us know how the Open Case Studies project has enhanced your educational curriculum or ability to tackle tough data-rich research projects.

JHSPH Faculty Contributors

Jessica Fanzo, PhD

Brendan Saloner, PhD

Megan Latshaw, PhD, MHS

Renee M. Johnson, PhD, MPH

Daniel Webster, ScD, MPH

Elizabeth Stuart, PhD

Bloomberg American Health Initiative

Joshua M. Sharfstein, MD – Director, Bloomberg American Health Initiative

Michelle Spencer, MS – Associate Director, Bloomberg American Health Initiative

Paulani Mui, MPH – Special Projects Officer, Bloomberg American Health Initiative

Other Contributors

Aboozar Hadavand, PhD, MA, MS, Minerva University

Roger Peng, PhD, MS, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Kirsten Koehler, PhD, MS, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Alex McCourt, PhD, JD, MPH, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Ashkan Afshin, MD, ScD, MPH, MSc, University of Washington and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)

Erin Mullany, BA, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)

External Review Panel

Leslie Myint, PhD, Macalester College

Shannon E. Ellis, PhD, University of California – San Diego

Christina Knudson, PhD, University of St. Thomas

Michael Love, PhD, University of North Carolina

Nicholas Horton, ScD, Amherst College

Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel, PhD, University of Edinburgh, Duke University, RStudio

Let Us Know How You're Using Open Case Studies

As the Open Case Studies project expands, we learn from you. Tell us what data you'd like to see, how you're using the data, or anything we can do to improve the project.

• Our Mission

Making Learning Relevant With Case Studies

The open-ended problems presented in case studies give students work that feels connected to their lives.

To prepare students for jobs that haven’t been created yet, we need to teach them how to be great problem solvers so that they’ll be ready for anything. One way to do this is by teaching content and skills using real-world case studies, a learning model that’s focused on reflection during the problem-solving process. It’s similar to project-based learning, but PBL is more focused on students creating a product.

Case studies have been used for years by businesses, law and medical schools, physicians on rounds, and artists critiquing work. Like other forms of problem-based learning, case studies can be accessible for every age group, both in one subject and in interdisciplinary work.

You can get started with case studies by tackling relatable questions like these with your students:

• How can we limit food waste in the cafeteria?
• How can we get our school to recycle and compost waste? (Or, if you want to be more complex, how can our school reduce its carbon footprint?)
• How can we improve school attendance?
• How can we reduce the number of people who get sick at school during cold and flu season?

Addressing questions like these leads students to identify topics they need to learn more about. In researching the first question, for example, students may see that they need to research food chains and nutrition. Students often ask, reasonably, why they need to learn something, or when they’ll use their knowledge in the future. Learning is most successful for students when the content and skills they’re studying are relevant, and case studies offer one way to create that sense of relevance.

Teaching With Case Studies

Ultimately, a case study is simply an interesting problem with many correct answers. What does case study work look like in classrooms? Teachers generally start by having students read the case or watch a video that summarizes the case. Students then work in small groups or individually to solve the case study. Teachers set milestones defining what students should accomplish to help them manage their time.

During the case study learning process, student assessment of learning should be focused on reflection. Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick’s Learning and Leading With Habits of Mind gives several examples of what this reflection can look like in a classroom: 

Journaling: At the end of each work period, have students write an entry summarizing what they worked on, what worked well, what didn’t, and why. Sentence starters and clear rubrics or guidelines will help students be successful. At the end of a case study project, as Costa and Kallick write, it’s helpful to have students “select significant learnings, envision how they could apply these learnings to future situations, and commit to an action plan to consciously modify their behaviors.”

Interviews: While working on a case study, students can interview each other about their progress and learning. Teachers can interview students individually or in small groups to assess their learning process and their progress.

Student discussion: Discussions can be unstructured—students can talk about what they worked on that day in a think-pair-share or as a full class—or structured, using Socratic seminars or fishbowl discussions. If your class is tackling a case study in small groups, create a second set of small groups with a representative from each of the case study groups so that the groups can share their learning.

4 Tips for Setting Up a Case Study

1. Identify a problem to investigate: This should be something accessible and relevant to students’ lives. The problem should also be challenging and complex enough to yield multiple solutions with many layers.

2. Give context: Think of this step as a movie preview or book summary. Hook the learners to help them understand just enough about the problem to want to learn more.

3. Have a clear rubric: Giving structure to your definition of quality group work and products will lead to stronger end products. You may be able to have your learners help build these definitions.

4. Provide structures for presenting solutions: The amount of scaffolding you build in depends on your students’ skill level and development. A case study product can be something like several pieces of evidence of students collaborating to solve the case study, and ultimately presenting their solution with a detailed slide deck or an essay—you can scaffold this by providing specified headings for the sections of the essay.

Problem-Based Teaching Resources

There are many high-quality, peer-reviewed resources that are open source and easily accessible online.

• The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science at the University at Buffalo built an online collection of more than 800 cases that cover topics ranging from biochemistry to economics. There are resources for middle and high school students.
• Models of Excellence , a project maintained by EL Education and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has examples of great problem- and project-based tasks—and corresponding exemplary student work—for grades pre-K to 12.
• The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning at Purdue University is an open-source journal that publishes examples of problem-based learning in K–12 and post-secondary classrooms.
• The Tech Edvocate has a list of websites and tools related to problem-based learning.

In their book Problems as Possibilities , Linda Torp and Sara Sage write that at the elementary school level, students particularly appreciate how they feel that they are taken seriously when solving case studies. At the middle school level, “researchers stress the importance of relating middle school curriculum to issues of student concern and interest.” And high schoolers, they write, find the case study method “beneficial in preparing them for their future.”

McCombs School of Business

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Videos Concepts Unwrapped View All 36 short illustrated videos explain behavioral ethics concepts and basic ethics principles. Concepts Unwrapped: Sports Edition View All 10 short videos introduce athletes to behavioral ethics concepts. Ethics Defined (Glossary) View All 58 animated videos - 1 to 2 minutes each - define key ethics terms and concepts. Ethics in Focus View All One-of-a-kind videos highlight the ethical aspects of current and historical subjects. Giving Voice To Values View All Eight short videos present the 7 principles of values-driven leadership from Gentile's Giving Voice to Values. In It To Win View All A documentary and six short videos reveal the behavioral ethics biases in super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff's story. Scandals Illustrated View All 30 videos - one minute each - introduce newsworthy scandals with ethical insights and case studies. Video Series

Case Studies UT Star Icon

Case Studies

More than 70 cases pair ethics concepts with real world situations. From journalism, performing arts, and scientific research to sports, law, and business, these case studies explore current and historic ethical dilemmas, their motivating biases, and their consequences. Each case includes discussion questions, related videos, and a bibliography.

A Million Little Pieces

James Frey’s popular memoir stirred controversy and media attention after it was revealed to contain numerous exaggerations and fabrications.

Abramoff: Lobbying Congress

Super-lobbyist Abramoff was caught in a scheme to lobby against his own clients. Was a corrupt individual or a corrupt system – or both – to blame?

Apple Suppliers & Labor Practices

Is tech company Apple, Inc. ethically obligated to oversee the questionable working conditions of other companies further down their supply chain?

Approaching the Presidency: Roosevelt & Taft

Some presidents view their responsibilities in strictly legal terms, others according to duty. Roosevelt and Taft took two extreme approaches.

Appropriating “Hope”

Fairey’s portrait of Barack Obama raised debate over the extent to which an artist can use and modify another’s artistic work, yet still call it one’s own.

Arctic Offshore Drilling

Competing groups frame the debate over oil drilling off Alaska’s coast in varying ways depending on their environmental and economic interests.

Banning Burkas: Freedom or Discrimination?

The French law banning women from wearing burkas in public sparked debate about discrimination and freedom of religion.

Birthing Vaccine Skepticism

Wakefield published an article riddled with inaccuracies and conflicts of interest that created significant vaccine hesitancy regarding the MMR vaccine.

Blurred Lines of Copyright

Marvin Gaye’s Estate won a lawsuit against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams for the hit song “Blurred Lines,” which had a similar feel to one of his songs.

Bullfighting: Art or Not?

Bullfighting has been a prominent cultural and artistic event for centuries, but in recent decades it has faced increasing criticism for animal rights’ abuse.

Buying Green: Consumer Behavior

Do purchasing green products, such as organic foods and electric cars, give consumers the moral license to indulge in unethical behavior?

Cadavers in Car Safety Research

Engineers at Heidelberg University insist that the use of human cadavers in car safety research is ethical because their research can save lives.

Cardinals’ Computer Hacking

St. Louis Cardinals scouting director Chris Correa hacked into the Houston Astros’ webmail system, leading to legal repercussions and a lifetime ban from MLB.

Cheating: Atlanta’s School Scandal

Teachers and administrators at Parks Middle School adjust struggling students’ test scores in an effort to save their school from closure.

Cheating: Sign-Stealing in MLB

The Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scheme rocked the baseball world, leading to a game-changing MLB investigation and fallout.

Cheating: UNC’s Academic Fraud

UNC’s academic fraud scandal uncovered an 18-year scheme of unchecked coursework and fraudulent classes that enabled student-athletes to play sports.

Cheney v. U.S. District Court

A controversial case focuses on Justice Scalia’s personal friendship with Vice President Cheney and the possible conflict of interest it poses to the case.

Christina Fallin: “Appropriate Culturation?”

After Fallin posted a picture of herself wearing a Plain’s headdress on social media, uproar emerged over cultural appropriation and Fallin’s intentions.

Climate Change & the Paris Deal

While climate change poses many abstract problems, the actions (or inactions) of today’s populations will have tangible effects on future generations.

Cover-Up on Campus

While the Baylor University football team was winning on the field, university officials failed to take action when allegations of sexual assault by student athletes emerged.

Covering Female Athletes

Sports Illustrated stirs controversy when their cover photo of an Olympic skier seems to focus more on her physical appearance than her athletic abilities.

Covering Yourself? Journalists and the Bowl Championship

Can news outlets covering the Bowl Championship Series fairly report sports news if their own polls were used to create the news?

Cyber Harassment

After a student defames a middle school teacher on social media, the teacher confronts the student in class and posts a video of the confrontation online.

Defending Freedom of Tweets?

Running back Rashard Mendenhall receives backlash from fans after criticizing the celebration of the assassination of Osama Bin Laden in a tweet.

Dennis Kozlowski: Living Large

Dennis Kozlowski was an effective leader for Tyco in his first few years as CEO, but eventually faced criminal charges over his use of company assets.

Digital Downloads

File-sharing program Napster sparked debate over the legal and ethical dimensions of downloading unauthorized copies of copyrighted music.

Dr. V’s Magical Putter

Journalist Caleb Hannan outed Dr. V as a trans woman, sparking debate over the ethics of Hannan’s reporting, as well its role in Dr. V’s suicide.

East Germany’s Doping Machine

From 1968 to the late 1980s, East Germany (GDR) doped some 9,000 athletes to gain success in international athletic competitions despite being aware of the unfortunate side effects.

Ebola & American Intervention

Did the dispatch of U.S. military units to Liberia to aid in humanitarian relief during the Ebola epidemic help or hinder the process?

Edward Snowden: Traitor or Hero?

Was Edward Snowden’s release of confidential government documents ethically justifiable?

Ethical Pitfalls in Action

Why do good people do bad things? Behavioral ethics is the science of moral decision-making, which explores why and how people make the ethical (and unethical) decisions that they do.

Ethical Use of Home DNA Testing

The rising popularity of at-home DNA testing kits raises questions about privacy and consumer rights.

Flying the Confederate Flag

A heated debate ensues over whether or not the Confederate flag should be removed from the South Carolina State House grounds.

Freedom of Speech on Campus

In the wake of racially motivated offenses, student protests sparked debate over the roles of free speech, deliberation, and tolerance on campus.

Freedom vs. Duty in Clinical Social Work

What should social workers do when their personal values come in conflict with the clients they are meant to serve?

Full Disclosure: Manipulating Donors

When an intern witnesses a donor making a large gift to a non-profit organization under misleading circumstances, she struggles with what to do.

Gaming the System: The VA Scandal

The Veterans Administration’s incentives were meant to spur more efficient and productive healthcare, but not all administrators complied as intended.

German Police Battalion 101

During the Holocaust, ordinary Germans became willing killers even though they could have opted out from murdering their Jewish neighbors.

Head Injuries & American Football

Many studies have linked traumatic brain injuries and related conditions to American football, creating controversy around the safety of the sport.

Head Injuries & the NFL

American football is a rough and dangerous game and its impact on the players’ brain health has sparked a hotly contested debate.

Healthcare Obligations: Personal vs. Institutional

A medical doctor must make a difficult decision when informing patients of the effectiveness of flu shots while upholding institutional recommendations.

High Stakes Testing

In the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act, parents, teachers, and school administrators take different positions on how to assess student achievement.

In-FUR-mercials: Advertising & Adoption

When the Lied Animal Shelter faces a spike in animal intake, an advertising agency uses its moral imagination to increase pet adoptions.

Krogh & the Watergate Scandal

Egil Krogh was a young lawyer working for the Nixon Administration whose ethics faded from view when asked to play a part in the Watergate break-in.

Limbaugh on Drug Addiction

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh argued that drug abuse was a choice, not a disease. He later became addicted to painkillers.

U.S. Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte’s “over-exaggeration” of an incident at the 2016 Rio Olympics led to very real consequences.

Meet Me at Starbucks

Two black men were arrested after an employee called the police on them, prompting Starbucks to implement “racial-bias” training across all its stores.

Myanmar Amber

Buying amber could potentially fund an ethnic civil war, but refraining allows collectors to acquire important specimens that could be used for research.

Negotiating Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy lawyer Gellene successfully represented a mining company during a major reorganization, but failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest.

Pao & Gender Bias

Ellen Pao stirred debate in the venture capital and tech industries when she filed a lawsuit against her employer on grounds of gender discrimination.

Pardoning Nixon

One month after Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency, Gerald Ford made the controversial decision to issue Nixon a full pardon.

Patient Autonomy & Informed Consent

Nursing staff and family members struggle with informed consent when taking care of a patient who has been deemed legally incompetent.

Prenatal Diagnosis & Parental Choice

Debate has emerged over the ethics of prenatal diagnosis and reproductive freedom in instances where testing has revealed genetic abnormalities.

Reporting on Robin Williams

After Robin Williams took his own life, news media covered the story in great detail, leading many to argue that such reporting violated the family’s privacy.

Responding to Child Migration

An influx of children migrants posed logistical and ethical dilemmas for U.S. authorities while intensifying ongoing debate about immigration.

Retracting Research: The Case of Chandok v. Klessig

A researcher makes the difficult decision to retract a published, peer-reviewed article after the original research results cannot be reproduced.

Sacking Social Media in College Sports

In the wake of questionable social media use by college athletes, the head coach at University of South Carolina bans his players from using Twitter.

Selling Enron

Following the deregulation of electricity markets in California, private energy company Enron profited greatly, but at a dire cost.

Snyder v. Phelps

Freedom of speech was put on trial in a case involving the Westboro Baptist Church and their protesting at the funeral of U.S. Marine Matthew Snyder.

Something Fishy at the Paralympics

Rampant cheating has plagued the Paralympics over the years, compromising the credibility and sportsmanship of Paralympian athletes.

Sports Blogs: The Wild West of Sports Journalism?

Deadspin pays an anonymous source for information related to NFL star Brett Favre, sparking debate over the ethics of “checkbook journalism.”

Stangl & the Holocaust

Franz Stangl was the most effective Nazi administrator in Poland, killing nearly one million Jews at Treblinka, but he claimed he was simply following orders.

Teaching Blackface: A Lesson on Stereotypes

A teacher was put on leave for showing a blackface video during a lesson on racial segregation, sparking discussion over how to teach about stereotypes.

The Astros’ Sign-Stealing Scandal

The Houston Astros rode a wave of success, culminating in a World Series win, but it all came crashing down when their sign-stealing scheme was revealed.

The Central Park Five

Despite the indisputable and overwhelming evidence of the innocence of the Central Park Five, some involved in the case refuse to believe it.

The CIA Leak

Legal and political fallout follows from the leak of classified information that led to the identification of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

The Collapse of Barings Bank

When faced with growing losses, investment banker Nick Leeson took big risks in an attempt to get out from under the losses. He lost.

The Costco Model

How can companies promote positive treatment of employees and benefit from leading with the best practices? Costco offers a model.

The FBI & Apple Security vs. Privacy

How can tech companies and government organizations strike a balance between maintaining national security and protecting user privacy?

The Miss Saigon Controversy

When a white actor was cast for the half-French, half-Vietnamese character in the Broadway production of Miss Saigon , debate ensued.

The Sandusky Scandal

Following the conviction of assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for sexual abuse, debate continues on how much university officials and head coach Joe Paterno knew of the crimes.

The Varsity Blues Scandal

A college admissions prep advisor told wealthy parents that while there were front doors into universities and back doors, he had created a side door that was worth exploring.

Providing radiation therapy to cancer patients, Therac-25 had malfunctions that resulted in 6 deaths. Who is accountable when technology causes harm?

Welfare Reform

The Welfare Reform Act changed how welfare operated, intensifying debate over the government’s role in supporting the poor through direct aid.

Wells Fargo and Moral Emotions

In a settlement with regulators, Wells Fargo Bank admitted that it had created as many as two million accounts for customers without their permission.

Stay Informed

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Case Challenge

Competition structure

Registration and eligibility.

Google’s Case Challenge is an initiative for business schools in India, designed to attract and engage budding early talent to creatively respond to live and realistic business challenges. This competition will give students an opportunity to stretch their imagination and come up with innovative solutions to the day to day challenges faced by teams across Google. Finalists will also get a chance to work closely with assigned Google mentors and understand Google’s ecosystem better, along with cash prizes for the winning teams.

Case Challenge is open to the participating institutes:

• Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
• Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
• Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta
• Indian Institute of Management, Indore
• Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow
• Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
• Indian Institute of Management, Shillong
• Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi
• Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
• Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad
• Management Development Institute, Gurgaon
• Indian School of Business
• XLRI - Xavier School of Management
• Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad
• Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai
• Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, Mumbai
• National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai
• Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource development
• Tata Institute of Social Sciences
• SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai

1 year executive programs of the above campuses are also eligible to register as Participating institutes.

Wild Card Entrants

With the endeavour to expand Case Challenge to students across India, we have introduced wild card entrants this year. In this, students from business schools across India can register and participate in the first round (Online Challenge) subject to the rules and requirements of the Competition. Further details will be discussed in the subsequent sections.

The competition will be conducted across four rounds:

• Online Challenge
• Case Study Round
• Cohort Round
• National Finale The language of the Competition will be entirely in English and will be conducted virtually.

Judging of all Rounds will be performed by a panel of judge(s) selected by Google. Please note that any entry is subject to and evaluated based on the following broad parameters:

• Structured thinking and strategy
• Originality & Innovation
• Feasibility & Scalability
• Market Intelligence/Data Insights/Consumer Insights
• Presentation Skills
• Q&A Session

Teams are prohibited from communicating with any outside party and cannot solicit assistance from anyone (including staff, faculty advisor, other students) during the time they are participants of the Competition, unless permitted by Google. Google's and/or any judge’s decision is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered in relation to such decision.

Round 1 (Online Challenge) Registration

• Digital marketing
• Sales & marketing
• Human resources
• Teams cannot change their choice of case study post registration.
• Round 1 registrations are open to students of all business schools in India.
• First 5000 registered teams will be invited to the Online Challenge round.

The Online Challenge

• The first 5000 registered teams will receive details about the Online Challenge through their registered email address.
• This 30 minute Online Challenge will assess the team’s critical thinking and logical reasoning and will be conducted on Sep. 18, 2021 .
• Atmost Top 5 Teams per campus from the participating institutes will be announced as campus winners, and will move to Round 2 .
• Top 20 teams from the wild card entrants will proceed to Round 2.
• The announcement of shortlisted Teams qualifying for the 2nd Round will be made via an email to the campus and the respective Teams.

Round 2 (Case Study Round) Making a Submission

• All the shortlisted Teams will be administered the case study on their chosen topics at the time of registration.
• The Teams will have to submit a one pager solution and a five minutes video pitching their proposed solution.
• The submission entries should consist of both the solution submission and video pitch, else the team stands disqualified.
• Only one submission per Team will be taken into consideration.
• Teams cannot change their choice of case study.

Submission Guidelines

• The format of the submission will have to be a one-page Google slide converted to a pdf document. No other formats (including zip files) will be accepted.
• Deadline for submission will be communicated to the teams.
• There are no restrictions on font size, style etc. but it should not result in a submission that is difficult to read by the judges.
• The maximum size of the PDF file to be uploaded should not exceed 10MB.
• The naming convention to be followed for the Submission is: CampusName_Team name_CaseStudyChosen. For the 'CaseStudyChosen', mention the type (Analytics, Digital marketing, Sales & marketing, Human Resources).
• We urge the Teams not to wait till the last moment to make their Submission entries. Google or its affiliates’ shall not be responsible for any technical snags that may occur due to high volume.
• No Team may revise, substitute, add, delete, or in any other manner alter their original Submission after it has been submitted.

What we expect from the Submission:

• Originality, clarity and uniqueness of the idea.
• Innovative approach to the given problem.
• Solution must be relevant to the given problem and should have a clear plan of action.
• Solution should be succinct yet self-explanatory.
• Feasibility of implementation, sustainability, scalability and fitment with Google’s vision.
• Tables, diagrams, and charts are permitted on the one-pager, but are not necessary (attachment of an appendix slide is not allowed).
• Relevant assumptions backed by proper rationale.
• References/sources to be quoted where required (as footnotes).

What the Submission should not have:

• It must not be derogatory, offensive, threatening, defamatory, disparaging, libelous or contain any content that is inappropriate, indecent, sexual, profane, tortuous, slanderous, discriminatory in any way, or that promotes hatred or harm against any group or person, or otherwise does not comply with the theme and spirit of the Competition.
• It must not contain content, material or any element that is unlawful, or otherwise in violation of or contrary to any applicable laws.
• It must not contain any content, material or element that displays any third party advertising, slogan, logo, trademark or otherwise indicates a sponsorship or endorsement by a third party, commercial entity or that is not within the spirit of the Competition.
• It must be original, unpublished work that does not contain, incorporate or otherwise use any content, material or element that is owned by a third party or entity.
• The judging panel as chosen by Google will evaluate all Submissions and shortlist Teams for Round 3 based on the judging criteria.
• Top 5 teams per case study (Analytics, Digital marketing, Sales & marketing, and Human Resources) will proceed to the next round.

Round 3 (Cohort Round) Presentation

• The shortlisted Teams will submit a presentation deepening their ideas as submitted in Round 2 and present its business solution (virtually) to a panel of judges.
• Deadline for submission will be communicated to the Teams.
• Teams will be given 12 minutes to present followed by an 8 minutes “Question and Answer” session by the judging panel.
• The Cohort Rounds will be held virtually via Google Hangouts between Oct. 22, 2021 and Oct. 28, 2021 .

Presentation Guidelines

• The presentation should not exceed ten slides.
• Case Study chosen during registrations cannot be changed.
• The format of the presentation will have to be Google slides and no other formats (including zip files) will be accepted.
• Additionally, qualifying teams will also have to submit a PDF version of their submission for our reference.
• You are free to select font type, size etc. but it should not result in a submission that is difficult to read by our panel, during the presentation.
• The maximum size of the file to be uploaded cannot exceed 100MB each (slide and PDF).
• The naming convention to be followed is: CampusName_Teamname_CaseStudyChosen. In the CaseStudyChosen, mention the type (Analytics, Digital marketing, Sales & marketing).
• Deadlines will not be extended. If the qualifying Team does not submit the presentation by the deadline, then such Team will be disqualified.
• It will be the responsibility of the Team Leader to ensure that if not all Team members at least 2 members of the Team are present for the presentations on the scheduled day. In the event of at least 2 members are present at the start of the presentation, the Team will be disqualified.
• The top two teams from each cohort round will qualify for the National Finale of the Competition.
• 8 teams in total will qualify for the National Finale.

Round 4 (National Finale) Mentoring

• Shortlisted Teams will be assigned a mentor to guide them for their pitch/presentation.
• Teams will be allowed to make changes to the presentation submitted during the Cohort Round, however the Teams cannot change the chosen case study.
• The shortlisted Teams will only be allowed to refine the solution and make cosmetic changes under the guidance of the mentor, with their permission. Major changes at this stage to the solution, approach, etc. will not be allowed.

Presentation

• The National Finale will be held virtually via Google Hangouts.
• The Finale date will be communicated to the Teams.
• Shortlisted Teams will present the revised presentation to a judging panel, and will get 12 minutes for presenting their idea, and 8 minutes for Q&A.
• At least 2 members will have to be present for the presentation on the given date of the National Finale Round.
• The judging panel as indicated by Google will review the presentation.
• The top three teams will be selected as national winners.

Student prizes

The top three teams at the National Finale will receive the following:

• Cash prize of INR 5,00,000/- to the entire team.
• Pre-placement interview offers for internship or final hiring.

Second prize:

• Cash prize of INR 3,00,000/- to the entire team.

Third prize:

• Cash prize of INR 2,00,000/- to the entire Team

Each member of the winning Teams is solely responsible for all taxes, levies and other statutory payments associated with his or her receipt and use of a cash prize received by such member. No substitution, assignment or transfer of prize is permitted. Google will withhold and/or report taxes as required by the applicable law. All prizes may be revoked if a Team is found to have violated any of the rules or instructions of Google or is disqualified. The business and location related to the pre-placement interview offers for internship and final hiring will be at the discretion of Google.

Competition period

The competition will be conducted across 4 rounds:

• National Finale

The language of the competition will be entirely in English and all the rounds will be conducted virtually.

Eligibility Criteria

• A student must be a first or second year student irrespective of their specialisation but enrolled in a full-time management program of a business school in India.
• Students must be Indian nationals. Foreign national students are not allowed to participate in this Competition.
• Every student must have an official user account provided by the business school at which the student is enrolled.

Participation as a Team

• Participation will be through teams of eligible students comprising a minimum of 2 or a maximum of 3 students and enrolled at a business school in India (a “Team”). First year students cannot form teams with 2nd year students and vice versa. A Team can only have team members from the same batch of the same institute.
• All Team members must independently meet the eligibility requirements of the Competition.
• A student cannot be a member of more than 1 Team.
• Students going on an exchange program can participate as long as there are at least 2 students in the Team that are not attending an exchange program and are available to attend the Competition.
• Modification to a Team’s composition or details after registration/communicating acceptance to participate is not allowed.
• Team members who compete at the beginning of the Competition must participate throughout the Competition Period, where the team is shortlisted for the next round.
• Any deviation from the above will result in immediate disqualification of the entire team.

How to enter

The Team must register before it can participate in the Competition.

• To enter the Competition, the Team Leader must complete the registration form and provide required information about the members of the Team.
• The Team may opt for the email address of the Team Leader as a point of contact for instructions on the Competition. The designated email address is necessary as specific communications/instructions regarding the Competition will be communicated to the Team through this address. You are required to keep yourself updated on all emails issued to you.
• The registration starts from Sept. 7, 2021 and will close on or before 22:00 hours IST on Sept. 10, 2021 .
• Only one registration per Team will be taken into consideration.
• Any questions or inquiries regarding the Competition should be directed to [email protected] .

Team Leader and Team Name

Each Team must nominate one member as the Team leader, who may not be changed during the Competition Period (the “Team Leader”).

• The Team Leader is the primary point of contact for the team during the competition.
• Each Team must decide on a name for their team. Your team name must be neutral and brief, without the use of offensive or vulgar language or violate the intellectual property rights of others. Google reserves the right to request for a change of the Team name in its sole discretion.

Verifying Eligibility

• Google reserves the right to verify your eligibility. You agree to provide Google with any proof of eligibility requested by Google and your refusal or failure to timely provide such proof may result in the Team’s disqualification from the Competition.

How can we route our queries to Google regarding the case challenge?

Please email us at [email protected] for any questions regarding the competition.

How many individuals can be on a team?

One team can have a minimum of two and maximum of three members. An individual can not be part of more than one team.

Who can participate in the competition?

Case Challenge is open to first or second year students (irrespective of their specialisation) enrolled in a full-time, management program of a business school in India.

Is the Case Challenge a continuation of Google Online Challenge (which was conducted recently for the first year students)?

No, Case Challenge and Google's Online Challenge are different programs.

I could not participate in Google Online Challenge. Can I still register for this competition?

Yes, these two are completely different initiatives.

All my team members have already appeared for Google’s Online Challenge. Do we still need to appear for the round 1 Online Challenge, post registration?

Yes. All teams who register to participate in Case Challenge will have to appear for Round 1, which is an Online Challenge. Google Online Challenge and Case Challenge are separate initiatives.

Can entries be modified after submission?

No, once submitted, entries cannot be modified.

I filled in the wrong details for one of my team members, how can I fix this?

Entries can not be modified once submitted. Please be sure to double check all details before submitting.

Do I need to register through my college email ID or can I use my personal email ID as well?

Only college email ID should be used for registration for all team members. Please don’t use your personal email ID.

What if my submission exceeds the file size limit?

The entry will be disqualified. Please ensure the files submitted are within the size limitation shared. For the first round, file size for the submission shouldn’t exceed 10MB.

Will any exceptions be made for late entries due to technical difficulties at the time of submission?

No, late entries will not be considered.

Can one person be a part of two different teams?

No, an individual cannot be part of more than one team.

Do we need to submit our resumes?

No, resumes are not required.

Will all registered teams qualify for round one?

Only the first 5000 registered teams will qualify for round one, which is the Online Challenge.

While registering, I can only see the cohort names (analytics, digital marketing and sales & marketing and human resources), but the case studies are not present?

The case studies will be available post round one. While registering, please choose the cohort of your interest. In case you qualify round one, you will be administered the case study on the cohort you have chosen.

Do all the team members have to appear for the Online Challenge or can the team leader appear for the challenge as a team representative?

Online Challenge is a team based challenge designed to assess a team’s critical thinking and decision making. Only the team leader will receive the challenge id and passkey details to login to the challenge. The team will be given 30 minutes to solve the challenge. It is the responsibility of the team leader to submit the answers on the team’s behalf. More than one submission per team will lead to the team’s disqualification.

For the video submission in Round two, do all the team members have to be present in the video?

Yes, all team members have to be a part of the video, else the team stands disqualified.

My campus is not included in the list of participating institutes. Can I still take part in the competition?

With the endeavour to expand Case Challenge to students across India, we have introduced wild card entrants. In this, student from business schools across India can register and participate in the first round (Online challenge) subject to the rules and requirements of the competition.

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Universal licensure recognition: a case study of montana.

May 16, 2024

Article Highlights

• Endorsement of out-of-state licenses makes up large and growing share of new Montana licenses
• Details of policy design and implementation matter
• To comply with 2019 reform, Montana licensing boards are gradually shifting their practices

Over 20 percent of workers in the United States have an occupational license , typically state-issued, that is legally required for them to work in their profession. Especially when state licensing requirements vary, it can be challenging for workers to practice in their profession after moving to a new state. Each state requires individuals to apply for a new professional license and complete the associated paperwork, fees, and—potentially—additional training and exams. Low- and moderate-income workers bear a particular burden to the extent that the costs of licensing fees and delayed employment are large relative to their incomes. In turn, this burden deters interstate migration by licensed workers and can impair the efficient functioning of U.S. labor markets.

Learn who’s licensed

For more on how many workers are licensed in the United States, see our Occupational Licensing Dashboard , which enables users to explore licensure rates by occupation and state.

To address some of these issues, roughly 20 states have enacted universal licensure recognition (ULR) reforms with the intent of making it easier for licensed professionals to move among states and continue to work. Researchers have begun to analyze impacts of these reforms , but there has been little direct study of ULR reforms’ on-the-ground implementation. To shed light on this emerging policy, we explore the experience of Montana, which recently enacted a ULR reform. Using data from the Montana Department of Labor & Industry (DLI) and interviews with staff from that agency, we examine trends in the volume of licensing in Montana pre- and post-ULR adoption and describe the challenges licensing boards face as they adjust their practices to comply with the new policy. 1

Licensure reforms like ULR are key labor market policies that can affect workers’ livelihoods. The Community Development and Engagement team at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis undertook this research as part of its mission to provide better evidence to leaders as they seek to remove labor market barriers for lower-income workers.

ULR in Montana

In recent decades, some licensing authorities have attempted to reduce interstate licensure barriers by constructing profession-specific compacts, the most well-known example being the Nurse Licensure Compact. Among other anticipated benefits , these compacts aim to make it easier for licensed individuals to work across state lines—temporarily or after a permanent move. However, a profession-specific compact can take many years to coordinate across participating states, has limited scope (i.e., it applies only to a single profession), and may result in states agreeing to higher levels of requirements than some policymakers would prefer.

ULR is designed to avoid those downsides by allowing states to set their own standards for how to acknowledge licenses from other states. In March 2019, the State of Montana enacted a ULR reform by changing one word at the beginning of the relevant state law , from “A board may issue a license to practice …” to “A board shall [emphasis added] issue a license to practice ... .” The reformed law requires boards to license out-of-state applicants if their original state license requires “substantially equivalent” education and experience. Many ULR reforms include the “substantially equivalent” standard, but some states have implemented even stronger reforms that omit that language .

Some proponents of Montana’s reform testified in legislative committees that the bill was a critical fix for workforce issues. They gave examples of workers licensed in other states who had to pay thousands of dollars for additional educational credits or who passed up opportunities because of differences in licensing requirements across states. Other supporters emphasized that the bill “simply reflects what is currently happening” or would reduce licensing-processing times. 2

Montana is issuing more occupational licenses

To explore the Montana experience, we analyzed Montana DLI data on all licenses newly granted by the department from 2013 through 2022, with all data anonymized to remove personally identifiable information. For each new license, we observed the name of the license granted (e.g., master electrician license or cosmetologist license), the year it was granted, and whether it was granted via an endorsement —that is, the recognition of an out-of-state license 3 —as opposed to the standard pathway for those without licenses. The March 2019 reform was intended to ease the path for those seeking endorsement.

Overall, as seen in Figure 1, we observe an increase in licensing from 2012, when a total of 7,429 licenses were issued, through 2022, when a total of 15,575 licenses were issued, with particularly strong growth from 2020 through 2021. Licensure by endorsement grew especially quickly, from 2,428 licenses issued in 2012 to 7,527 in 2022.

The timing of Montana’s policy change presents some challenges in examining the data. Because the law change occurred partway through 2019, any immediate effect would be muted in that first year. And starting early in the following year, the COVID-19 pandemic had dramatic effects that may have mattered for licensing patterns. Unfortunately, the lack of data for other states makes it difficult to rigorously adjust for pandemic impacts.

For each bar in Figure 1, we note the share of licenses granted by endorsement to more clearly observe how endorsement behavior changed after the 2019 reform went into effect. Endorsement has constituted an important licensure pathway in Montana for more than a decade. As noted above, the aim of the 2019 reform was to ease the path to endorsement—specifically, by extending that option to more occupations and catalyzing changes in existing endorsement processes. As seen in Figure 1, over time a larger share of applicants have received their licenses through endorsement, with especially rapid increases in the early 2010s, when the share increased from 33 percent of all licenses in 2012 to 42 percent in 2014, and from 2019 to 2021, when the share increased from 42 percent to 48 percent. The latter increase is consistent with, but not clear evidence of, an effect of the 2019 ULR reform.

The sheer volume and growing importance of licensure by endorsement indicate that ULR and similar reforms have the potential to substantially impact both licensed workers and the overall labor market. However, the existing data alone do not permit us to confidently state how the 2019 policy change affected licensure of out-of-state-licensed applicants, either in the short or the long run. Moreover, ULR reform may have effects on outcomes not well described by the data, like time to licensure and the overall burden for administrators and applicants.

Challenges for implementation

Because the data leave many questions unanswered, and because the decentralized nature of licensing processes in Montana means that no single entity can answer them all, we spoke with several executive officers of Montana licensing boards to gain more insight into how ULR reform has and hasn’t affected licensing in the state. We uncovered some key similarities and differences in how boards approached the change.

In response to the 2019 reform, all leaders we interviewed had initiated a thorough review of requirements in other states to identify which states have requirements that are substantially equivalent to Montana’s. They all aspired to move to a system where applicants who were applying for a license by endorsement from a substantially equivalent state would only have to provide a verified current license, pass a background check, and complete a disciplinary review. Interviewees stressed that it took a lot of research and time to properly identify which states had substantially equivalent requirements. We took the interviewees’ comments as an indication that the “substantially equivalent” ULR provision is an important one, with implications for how licensing boards operate and, potentially, for the effectiveness of ULR. “Substantially equivalent” clauses can help ensure that out-of-state licensing applicants have met similar requirements as in-state applicants, but that must be weighed against the diminished reach of ULR policies to applicants from states deemed not to have substantially equivalent standards.

The executive officers also emphasized that it took considerable effort to change ingrained practices. Boards that already endorsed out-of-state licenses found it challenging to shift from examining the experience and credentials of a given applicant to a simpler, faster process of first checking whether an applicant’s license was issued by a state that meets the substantial-equivalency standard. Many boards have yet to implement this transformation in how they process out-of-state license applications. As a result, prospective applicants may face a dearth of clear, accessible guidance about what information they need to submit with their applications, which in turn can waste their time and deter them from applying.

Boards that did not endorse substantially equivalent licenses prior to the 2019 reform faced even bigger barriers to changing their practices. The electrical board, for example, had to begin a process to change rules that directly conflicted with the 2019 policy and prohibited licensure by endorsement for master electricians. That board was working on changing its rules this year to allow for substantial-equivalency endorsement. Figure 2 shows that although a steady number of journeyman electrician licenses were issued via endorsement over the past decade, no master electrician licenses had been issued via endorsement through the end of 2022 (when our sample period ends).

The full impact of the 2019 reform has taken considerable time to materialize, with each board working through its own individualized process for compliance. 4 Licensing boards that already endorsed out-of-state licenses could make changes more quickly, but these changes are still in progress and seem most likely to affect processing time, as opposed to dramatically increasing the number of licenses issued. Unfortunately, this is not an outcome we can observe in our data. Conversely, for boards that previously barred licenses by endorsement, as in the master electrician case, the potential policy impact is much larger, albeit delayed. Once rules are changed to align with the obligation to grant licenses by endorsement for out-of-state applicants, there may be a more readily observable impact of the 2019 reform.

While it is not possible for us to make a definitive statement about ULR effects, the data—along with our interviews with licensing authorities—help illuminate the workings of ULR and the challenges in its implementation. Further research on the “substantially equivalent” provision and the potential benefits of centralized administration would advance understanding of the effects of ULR reforms.

The authors thank Kihwan Bae, Zaakary Barnes, and Carolyn Dennis for insightful comments and feedback on an earlier draft. The authors are also grateful to the Montana DLI for sharing the data featured in the article, and to interviewees who provided crucial context.

1 Minneapolis Fed staff spoke with four executive officers and one staff member of Montana licensing boards in January and February 2024.

2 These statements were made in hearings in the Montana State Legislature on February 1, 2019 , and February 19, 2019 .

3 In our data, licenses can be granted via endorsement when a multi-state compact determines a standard set of requirements for an occupation, or when a licensing board determines that a specific state has sufficiently similar requirements to those of its own state.

4 To accelerate this, some states (e.g., Pennsylvania ) have taken actions like specifying a response timeline that boards must meet when processing licensure applications, or centrally monitoring the number of accepted and rejected applications.

Ayushi Narayan conducts research on labor market institutions to help the Community Development and Engagement team understand how employment-related policies and trends affect low- and moderate-income communities. Prior to joining the Bank, her work included roles at the Council of Economic Advisers, Nike, and Amazon.

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12 Major Challenges Facing the Healthcare Industry in 2024

Healthcare was a $4.3 trillion industry in 2021 for the United States alone, accounting for 18.3% of the country’s gross domestic product. From primary care to life-saving emergency treatment, healthcare provides essential services to people in need — and jobs that require a wide range of skills and expertise. As such a large and impactful industry, healthcare faces a host of challenges, from delivering high-quality and equitable care to managing and securing data and supporting its workforce. Beyond that are challenges stemming from government agencies seeking to increase their influence over how those trillions could be better spent and a growing number of disruptors from outside the industry that all want a piece of the pie.

What Are Healthcare’s Top Industry Challenges?

Hospitals and health systems are challenged by maintaining continuous operations, keeping patients safe and ensuring their data is secure. Those challenges come at a significant cost in terms of hiring the right personnel, deploying strong technology and making clinical and business processes efficient without compromising care quality. What’s more, healthcare institutions must do their work while responding to an ever-changing regulatory environment and facing new kinds of competitors that promise patients more convenience or less costly care. So healthcare providers must find a balance between provisioning care that meets the needs of patients and expectations of regulators and maintaining financial strength.

Key Takeaways

• Many healthcare industry challenges stem from a need to respond to external forces, be they from regulators, competitors or cybercriminals.
• Inefficient workflows for documenting patient appointments, submitting insurance claims and normalizing unstructured data add to organizations’ expenses.
• From telehealth to electronic health records, hospitals and health systems face looming questions about how to deploy technology to improve patient experience without further burdening clinical staff.
• Healthcare providers stand to benefit from adopting enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that can offer systemwide insight into operational performance.

Healthcare Industry Challenges Explained

Healthcare comes with the highest stakes: people’s lives. The dozen healthcare industry challenges outlined below cover a wide range of areas. Some are the result of external forces, such as cybersecurity, competition and government regulation. Others stem from internal processes that need improvement, such as inefficient workflows for documenting clinical care or submitting claims. Others, still, may be influenced by internal and external forces, such as the adoption of telehealth or the movement to provide more equitable care. But woven through them all is the common thread of uncertainty: uncertainty about disruptive competitors, the next cyberattack, the future of telehealth services and a whole host of other technology innovations that hold great promise. There’s also uncertainty about how providers can move to value-based care without creating a back-breaking administrative burden — and that’s only one of healthcare’s many regulatory-induced challenges.

Each of these challenges is significant on its own but, together, they create a tough environment. Not meeting these challenges could harm patient care, financial stability and the reputation of a health or hospital system’s reputation. Successfully meeting the challenges requires a proactive approach. Providers must embrace technology that supports their ability to make decisions based on data. They need to foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement and prioritize patient-centered care. Collaboration — both within healthcare organizations and with external partners — is vital. As the landscape continues to change, flexibility and adaptability will be key for successful healthcare providers.

12 Healthcare Industry Challenges

A wide range of challenges impact healthcare organizations and will impact how they provide care, use technology and otherwise do business in 2024.

1. Cybersecurity: The healthcare industry is especially susceptible to cyberattacks due to the volume of personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) that hospitals and health systems store. Research has shown that 60% of healthcare organizations have been hit with ransomware attacks in the past 12 months, while the number of successful attacks targeting the healthcare industry has more than doubled in the same time frame.

It has become crucial for healthcare companies to address their cybersecurity issues because more than financial consequences are at stake: Patient outcomes are affected and, sometimes, it’s literally a matter of life and death. Roughly 80% of ransomware attacks that hit hospitals disrupt patient care, with disruptions typically lasting two weeks. These disruptions often force organizations to divert care to other facilities, which has been linked to increased complications with medical procedures and higher mortality rates.

Meanwhile, the cost of mitigating a data breach in the healthcare industry is more than $10 million, and the potential loss of annual operating income from a single ransomware attack is as much as 30%. With hospital and health system operating margins at less than 2% and still recovering from largely negative margins in 2022, that is a cost few organizations find themselves able to pay.

2. Telehealth: The healthcare industry was quick to embrace telehealth in the early days of COVID-19; in April 2020, its use was 78 times greater than it was two months prior. That said, the gradual return to in-person care coupled with the expiration of the public health emergency, which relaxed many restrictions on when and how telehealth could be used, has led to increased doubt about telehealth’s future.

Currently, telehealth use represents about 5% of all medical claims. However, nearly 70% of all telehealth claims represent mental or behavioral health appointments, which suggests that other medical specialties haven’t fully embraced telehealth use. It’s also possible that utilization will drop in 2024 and beyond given uncertainty about what services Medicare will cover, how much physicians will be paid for telehealth visits and whether providers will be able to prescribe controlled substances in telehealth visits.

Further complicating telehealth’s future matters is the potential for vendor churn. Many hospitals and health systems are nearing the end of the contracts they signed with telehealth vendors early in the pandemic. As these organizations reevaluate the technology they have and whether it meets their needs, the healthcare industry may need to prepare for significant disruption in telehealth.

3. Competition: Brick-and-mortar health systems increasingly face competition and disruption. Standalone urgent care clinics are growing at a 7% annual rate, and today 80% of the U.S. population lives within a 10-minute drive of an urgent care center. (Notably, that total excludes clinics inside retail stores, which number more than 2,500.) The popularity of these clinics comes from convenience, as they tend to be open longer than the typical doctor’s office.

In addition, retail companies that have not traditionally provided care delivery services are getting into the game. Amazon acquired primary care provider One Medical in 2022, both CVS Health and Walgreens have acquired primary care and home health companies, and Best Buy has focused on supporting in-home remote patient monitoring. To top it off, venture capital firm General Catalyst has recently hinted that it may purchase a hospital.

All these moves are poised to have a significant impact on the healthcare industry in 2024 and beyond. Hospitals and doctor’s offices with long wait times to schedule an appointment or to see a doctor may have trouble competing with clinics that have longer hours or are even willing to send a care provider into someone’s home.

4. Invoicing and payment processing: The healthcare industry is especially susceptible to revenue leakage , with as much as 15 cents on every dollar earned going uncollected. The primary challenge organizations face is an inefficient revenue cycle management (RCM) process. Manual workflows are common for tasks such as verifying a patient’s insurance information, obtaining prior authorization, checking the status of a claim and appealing denials. These manual processes are time-consuming and subject to human error, so they lead to added expenses — most notably, in the form of employee time. This contributes to payment delays, which means it takes healthcare organizations longer to get paid for the services they provide. Unfortunately, about 75% of providers use manual processes for collections and, as a result, about 70% need more than 30 days to collect payments from patients.

It is possible to streamline these processes using electronic invoicing and invoice processing , which automatically tracks invoices from the time they are received. This can reduce errors, shorten time to payment and improve a healthcare provider’s cash flow. It’s worth noting, however, that certain claims or prior authorization denials will still require manual intervention.

5. Price transparency: Two U.S. regulations aim to help patients understand the cost of healthcare services and avoid unanticipated bills. First, the Hospital Price Transparency rule requires hospitals to provide both machine-readable and consumer-friendly lists of prices for common services and procedures. Second, the No Surprises Act requires hospitals to provide good-faith estimates of what services will cost and bans out-of-network charges for services provided at an in-network facility.

While organizations such as the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association support these regulations, they have also noted the strains they can put on healthcare providers. For example, it’s difficult to determine a single, fixed rate for a medical service, as organizations often negotiate different rates with different insurance companies. In addition, creating price transparency tools takes time and requires financial and staff resources that are in short supply in healthcare organizations. Finally, the arbitration process for insurers and providers to negotiate a “surprise bill” issued to a patient is likely to result in lower payments, which could adversely impact the hospitals and health systems that provide the services.

6. Big data: The average hospital system produces 137 terabytes of data every day. This data is valuable for many reasons: It documents the care that has been delivered, it offers insight into a patient’s overall health and wellness, and it provides an audit trail for compliance and legal purposes. The healthcare industry struggles to manage big data because as much as 80% of its data is unstructured, such as free-text physicians’ notes or medical images, and cannot easily be captured in the rows of a database. Normalizing unstructured data to look like structured data makes it more useful for clinical and business decision-making, but the normalization process is expensive and time-consuming when done manually.

Here, data crunching is necessary to convert raw data into a machine-readable format. Key to successful data crunching is knowing the use case, understanding the data sources and documenting the process to help make it more efficient in the future. Data crunching will be an important consideration for the healthcare industry in 2024 as organizations seek to study their data to better understand clinical and financial outcomes.

7. Health equity: The negative impact that economic and social marginalization have on health outcomes was well documented prior to the 2020 pandemic. However, higher rates of hospitalization and death from COVID-19 among non-white Americans — coupled with lower vaccination rates — further highlight the healthcare industry’s ongoing struggle to provide equitable care. Other examples include higher rates of death from cancer and higher maternal mortality rates.

In response, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has set five priorities for improving health equity in the United States over the next decade. These priorities include collecting more accurate data about patients’ barriers to receiving care, building the capacity to address disparities in care and making healthcare services more accessible.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has indicated that addressing health equity “requires ongoing societal efforts” to remove barriers to care and address long-standing injustices that patients face based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, disability status or other factors. The healthcare industry has an important role to play, but institutions in education, government, public safety and the private sector also need to be involved.

8. Slow clinical workflows: Nearly 80% of office-based physicians and 96% of hospitals in the United States use electronic health record (EHR) systems. This is a significant increase from less than 20% of physicians in 2001, influenced largely by federal reimbursements allocated in the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009. In terms of clinical workflow, EHR systems appear to come with both yin and yang. They have improved care delivery by streamlining note-taking, improving decision-making and providing reminders and alerts to clinical staff. However, multiple features of EHR systems have been linked to an adverse impact on clinical workflows, ranging from long load times to information overload. Clinical staff also spend more time looking at their computer screens and less time with patients, and more time completing their clinical notes or documenting visits to submit bills.

A range of technology innovations have the potential to improve the clinical workflow within EHR systems, including the use of generative AI to automate documentation and make it easier to search for information. The challenge for the healthcare industry in 2024 is to determine the appropriate use cases for such innovations — and ensure that using them does not further distract clinical staff during patient visits.

9. Provider shortages: The healthcare industry faces a significant shortage of qualified professionals to deliver care. The Association of American Medical Colleges has projected a total shortage of between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians by 2034. Meanwhile, a 2023 analysis of data from the 2022 National Nursing Workforce Survey showed that more than 610,000 experienced registered nurses — nearly one-third of nurses in the U.S. — are considering leaving their jobs in the next five years due to stress directly linked to the pandemic.

Several factors contribute to these expected shortages. Chief among them is burnout, fueled by a combination of increased workloads during the pandemic and the growing number of administrative tasks that clinical staff are forced to complete. Additionally, nearly 45% of physicians are over the age of 55; as these physicians reach retirement age, there are not enough medical school and residency program graduates to replace them.

The shortage of physicians and nurses is hitting rural areas of the United States especially hard. Nearly 200 rural hospitals have closed since 2005 and another 600 are at risk of closing, in part because they struggle to compete with the higher salaries and better working conditions of suburban and urban hospitals. This will have a significant impact on the healthcare industry in 2024 and beyond. Patients in rural areas will have to travel farther to get the care they need, which contributes to poorer health outcomes.

10. Patient experience: Slow clinical workflows and provider shortages have contributed to declining satisfaction with the patient experience. Also bringing down patient experience are long wait times — nearly a month (26 days), on average, between scheduling a new-patient appointment and the appointment date — and persistent manual processes for managing appointments, renewing medications and discussing test results. These increase the likelihood that a patient will switch doctors, which leads to lost revenue and hurts the reputation of a hospital or health system.

The healthcare industry will continue to respond to these challenges in 2024 through physical changes, such as state-of-the-art facilities, and a range of technology offerings. Self-scheduling capabilities, automated reminders, digital check-in and real-time payments are some examples of technologies that can improve the patient experience. Increasing the level of care provided in the home, whether through home visits or telehealth appointments, can also help.

For many organizations, these are large-scale changes. Leaders must ensure that new technologies or workflows to improve the patient experience do not adversely impact the experience of clinical staff, who are already feeling overwhelmed.

11. Move to value-based care: CMS has set ambitious goals for transitioning the healthcare industry to value-based care, which reimburses providers based on the clinical outcomes they achieve and not simply on the volume of services they perform. For example, the agency hopes all Medicare beneficiaries and most Medicaid beneficiaries will be enrolled in value-based programs by 2030.

Healthcare providers face two core challenges in achieving this goal. One is the volume of value-based care models that CMS has created. The accountable care organization (ACO) is the most notable, but there are also separate models for certain chronic conditions, prescription drugs and medical procedures, as well as models for specific types of Medicare and Medicaid health plans. A patient seen by a hospital or health system could conceivably be part of multiple value-based care models, which makes it difficult to document where, when and from whom they receive care.

The second challenge is the amount of documentation required to demonstrate value. There are several components of quality care, including safety, equity, timeliness and cost. Organizations must report their performance on these metrics, and many others, to show both CMS and commercial insurers that they are delivering high-value care. This is creating a significant administrative burden likely to leave hospitals and health systems with fewer resources to devote to patient care.

12. Regulatory changes: Healthcare, of course, is heavily regulated, as patients’ lives are at stake. The pace of regulatory change has picked up since the pandemic, partly to give healthcare organizations greater flexibility to provide necessary care and partly to give patients improved access to their own health records — while keeping that information secure. But regulations covering the use of telehealth, transparent pricing, health equity and value-based care continue to evolve. In addition, the healthcare industry must contend with recently passed regulations, such as the information blocking rule (which requires organizations to share patients’ records with them), and new requirements for documenting evaluation and management (E&M) care encounters more accurately.

The healthcare industry is struggling to keep up with this pace of change. Staff need to be educated about the new rules, particularly if their day-to-day roles are directly affected. Legal and compliance teams, meanwhile, need to review and update policies on everything from releasing information to documenting care — and often must sort through multiple regulations that apply to the same process.

How ERP Can Help Solve Healthcare Challenges

While healthcare’s challenges have disparate origins and require different mitigation strategies, a common thread is the pitfall of inefficiency. Manual workflows for submitting claims, departmental data silos, time-consuming processes for normalizing data and outdated practices for engaging with patients all result in healthcare providers operating less efficiently than they could. Furthermore, that inefficiency makes it difficult to provide high-quality care, meet compliance requirements and adapt to competitive pressures.

But unifying data and automating manual processes is where enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems shine. An ERP system can bring together previously siloed data from across the healthcare organization. Through this unified view of data, executives have greater oversight into administrative and clinical operations, while hospital leaders have greater access to the information they need to make informed decisions quickly. Oversight and informed decision-making improve efficiency, which enables high-quality care, reduces costs and sets the stage for growth.

ERP systems support growing healthcare organizations in at least three important ways. First is their easy scalability. Cloud-based ERP systems help organizations deploy a single system across multiple locations without the need for additional infrastructure or resources. Second is unification. With ERP, reporting, purchasing, accounting and many other departments are served from a single platform, removing the inefficiencies and redundancies of managing dozens of different applications. And third is integration with external systems. ERP systems are designed to facilitate that integration, so they can automatically extract data from business and clinical systems, eliminating the need to pull manual reports and getting data into decision-makers’ hands faster.

Adapt to the Ever-Changing Healthcare Landscape With NetSuite

Healthcare organizations must do business in a complex and dynamic environment where it’s imperative to respond to changing market conditions, industry regulations and competitive pressures, all while providing quality care to patients in need and supporting the staff that do this meaningful work. NetSuite cloud-based ERP software for healthcare and life sciences is well-suited to help providers adapt to change through workflow reconfiguration, process automation, real-time reporting and better visibility into data across the enterprise. Leveraging NetSuite Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) empowers the data-driven decision-making that health and hospital systems need to maintain operations at a time of great uncertainty.

For example, using NetSuite, Ohio-based Crossroads Health , a provider of behavioral health and mental health services, was able to submit stronger applications for grant funding, refresh its annual budgeting cycle and prepare budget reports that are individually tailored to the interests of board members. This has supported Crossroads Health as it doubled in size, expanded into primary care and added pharmacy services even as it managed increases in wages and expenses that outpaced Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.

The healthcare industry faces no shortage of challenges to how it documents, delivers and pays for patient care. Health organizations must prepare to expect the unexpected — whether in the form of new regulations, new competitors or new cyber threats — while maintaining the level of service their patients expect and improving access for those who have been underserved. While there is no single solution for addressing all these challenges, greater visibility into clinical, operational and performance data enables healthcare providers to take proactive steps to meet the heady challenges they face.

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Healthcare Industry Challenges FAQs

What is the biggest challenge in the healthcare industry?

Healthcare organizations’ greatest challenge is adapting to pressure from a wide range of external stakeholders that they cannot control, from government regulators, to competitors in adjacent vertical markets, to cyberattackers seeking valuable financial and personal information. This is a difficult and expensive challenge for organizations that must maintain 24/7 operations while providing high-quality patient care.

What are the biggest issues in healthcare 2024?

The healthcare industry maintains many inefficient workflows. Some, such as processes for submitting claims to insurance companies or sending bills to patients, are largely manual. Others have been automated but remain challenging due to requirements for clinical and administrative documentation. In some cases, such as leveraging big data, the inefficiency is a by-product of the nature of healthcare. Because the bulk of the industry’s data is in unstructured formats, it can be difficult and time-consuming to normalize it for interpretation and analysis.

What are three common barriers to growth in the healthcare industry?

Healthcare organizations struggle to grow due to inefficient workflows that make it difficult to see more patients or pay bills on time. In addition, new documentation required as part of the transition to value-based care and other regulatory requirements has pushed the healthcare industry to add administrative personnel, which means fewer resources are available to hire physicians and nurses. Finally, the healthcare industry must continue to address inequity in access to care, which contributes to poorer outcomes in marginalized and underrepresented communities.

What is a major disruptor facing healthcare currently?

Traditional providers of healthcare services, such as hospitals, health systems and physicians’ offices, face increased competition from retailers, urgent-care providers and direct-to-consumer telehealth providers. These competitors aim to provide more convenient care at a lower cost than a trip to the doctor’s office or emergency room. At the same time, these entities often lack the brand awareness and market presence of health systems that have been part of their communities for decades, if not centuries.

Healthcare & Hospital Budgeting Guide for 2024

Healthcare professionals face many unique challenges, not the least of which is ensuring that they have everything they need to effectively treat their patients. Planning and allocating funds and resources is difficult…

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In six months, Prisma Health cut employee MSK pain and likely surgeries in half

Their digital MSK solution has resulted in a 3.6x ROI

• Hinge Health Learning Center
• Prisma Health Case Study

At Prisma Health, outstanding patient care depends on pain-free employees

Team member well-being is a top priority, south carolina’s largest healthcare organization.

A private, nonprofit company with 18 acute and specialty hospitals, and 320 practice sites

Approximately 29,309 team members serving more than 1.5 million patients annually

Over 5,400 employed and independent clinicians across the clinically integrated inVio Health Network

Like most health systems, cost savings is a primary objective

Quality patient care depends on healthy employees who are pain-free

“I am so thankful for this program. I went on a cruise right before Christmas and had very little to no pain in my foot! It would have been a miserable cruise with the pain I had been having daily for months prior to joining the program and doing the exercises.”

– Prisma Health employee and Hinge Health participant

About Prisma Health

Like most healthcare organizations, many Prisma Health employees have physically demanding jobs. Team members move patients and manipulate equipment around the clock. As a result, it’s common for employees to experience strains and MSK pain. 

From an expense perspective, MSK is a significant cost driver for Prisma Health’s benefits plan. Part of Prisma Health’s strategy is to prevent less acute events from turning into severe pain or a surgery. 

"[Being] an organization of caregivers means that employees tend to put themselves last, even in the case of their own health," says Antell Mitchell-James, Vice President, Total Rewards & Employee Health, Prisma Health. "We take care of patients, so we can’t not take care of employees. We need to deliver care in a way that engages employees, is accessible, and meets them where they are."

Prisma Health’s workforce and benefits challenges

Prisma Health’s employees have busy and stressful lives. Many have children and some are single parents. Some members rely on public transportation.

Unless healthcare is convenient and easy to access, people may ignore non-acute strains and MSK pain. This can lead to acute conditions that often require costly surgical interventions. And it has.

"MSK is a significant cost driver in our benefit plan," says Mitchell-James. "That’s no surprise when team members lift and move patients every moment of the day and manipulate equipment so we can get the best test results for our patients.”

Although Prisma Health has its own in-house physical therapy (PT) services, many employees and health plan members can’t get to in-person appointments because their schedules don’t align with the PT team’s hours of operation.

Minimizing increases in health plan costs is a high priority for Prisma Health, since the organization is faced with narrow margins like so many healthcare organizations.

"If you can reduce the cost of your health plan, that’s incredible," says Mitchell-James. "A 9% increase in your medical plan year-over-year isn’t sustainable in healthcare. You can’t shift that cost to team members. You need to stay affordable so they can get the care they need.”

Solutions are one thing, but using them is another. In general, healthcare employees can be slow to adopt new programs. Communicating with members about new approaches to MSK pain and engaging people are challenges for the organization. 

Prisma Health’s MSK benefits program implementation

The Hinge Health implementation at Prisma Health went smoothly. The benefits team appreciates that Hinge Health assists with member communications, such as periodic home mailers. Prisma Health also uses engagement tools like videos of team members who have successfully used Hinge Health and team member newsletters. 

Member adoption and feedback have been positive. At Prisma Health, Hinge Health has a 9.2/10 member program satisfaction rating.

In less than one year, over 2,000 members have engaged in Hinge Health and 35,650 exercise therapy sessions have been completed. Average weekly interactions per participant year to date include:

3 to 4 exercises therapy sessions 

2 to 3 care team interactions

1 to 2 education articles read

“Hinge Health was an access play for us," says Mitchell-James. "A single mom or dad can’t take PTO to get to physical therapy. They want to save it for sick kids and they may need to be home at a certain time to care for children.”

Prisma Health’s Hinge Health participants report:

50% reduction in pain in the first 90 days

81% achieved minimal clinically important differences (MCID)

55% reduction in anxiety

42% reduction in depression

50% reduction in surgery likelihood

53% improved productivity

"I’ve been doing this work for more than 25 years, so I’m not easily impressed, says Mitchell-James. "I’ve spent a lot of money trying a lot of things and not getting the results. But, in this case, I was impressed by the early adoption and positive (non-solicited) feedback we have received from our team members about Hinge Health."

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