Supply Chain Management: Case studies

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Why case studies?

Case studies can provide:

  • Profiles of real, individual companies, including information about their work processes, relationships
  • Profiles of industries, including information about the structure of the industry, and the relationships within the supply chain
  • Numbers and data

Please note that this is not a guarantee!  But case studies sometimes do provide all of the above ...

Case studies from Harvard

Harvard Business School Press vs. Harvard Business Review

  • Harvard Business PublishingTwo types of case studies:   shorter and often about fictional companies; longer, usually 20-30 pages, and about real companies
  • Two sources:  published as articles in the journal Harvard Business Review; or published as individual publications by the Harvard Business School Press

We do NOT subscribe to the Harvard Business School Press case studies.  (That would be really expensive ...)  However, please be aware that these case studies are actually quite cheap to buy individually; they go for about $7 each when you buy them directly from Harvard.  Below is a link to their site.

That said, there are some case studies within the journal Harvard Business Review (HBR).  These are not the Harvard Business School case studies (the ones used in the Harvard Business School classes); these tend to be shorter, less detailed and less in-depth, and are usually about fictitious companies.  Also below is a link to the full-text of the HBR.

How to read case studies: 

Harvard has some recommendations for this.  Below is a short video introduction and a book about it.

About the ebook:

Read it ONLINE or download individual chapters, that is my recommendation!  Downloading the complete ebook is only necessary if you need to read it OFFLINE; be aware that there are several requirements for downloading an ebook.  

Scholarly journal articles

For these databases, try the following types of searches:

  • company name and case studies
  • work process and case studies
  • supply chain issue / practice and case studies

In each of the databases, what happens after you get to a list of results will vary ... if you need help, please ask?!

Other journals as sources for case studies