Harvard Business School Case Studies Deepen Students’ Understanding

With decades of experience in the business side of the pharmaceutical sector, Cambridge Therapeutics’ Chairman John Klein works to offer consistently innovative, patient-centered products and packaging. Prior to his endeavors with Cambridge Therapeutics, he held senior executive roles with some of the world’s premier firms. John Klein received a Businessweek Corporate Turnaround of the Year Award for his work with Zenith Laboratories. His service as a Harvard Business School consultant resulted in three of the school’s famed case studies.

The HBS case-study method changes the way students, teachers, and practitioners think by offering them in-depth glimpses into the actual decision-making processes involved in corporate and organizational strategies. The case studies examine in detail the challenges faced by major organizations, putting a student into the role of a real executive faced with the same incomplete information, resource constraints, and time-management issues that arise in a real-world decision-maker’s life. As in the real world, a case study offers no simple or obvious solutions.

HBS bases its field cases on actual company situations, including “armchair” cases, derived from the lived experiences or scholarship of an instructor. “Library” cases draw on published works to create challenging scenarios.

Numerous HBS graduates have noted that the rigors of this method, and the case study work they have absorbed, have been high points in their education.