Case Studies

3.29. Organise the sections of the case.

1.       Organise the sections of the case.

You will probably need to organise your information under topics like the following:

1.  Introduction to the problem
2. Background on the place – where is it, how big, what climate, etc. – this part should be a brief, overall description. Think about having two pages of written material, photos, or even a video, so that your readers can really get a feel for what the place looks like. Summarise the main features of the place. What makes it special?
3. Visitors to the place – you want to make the reader do some work, so you can say that the number of visitors are shown on a table or chart you have compiled. You might want to include a chart that shows the number of visitors that come to another similar kind of place that does have facilities. This will let your readers make some comparisons. If possible, include information you received when you talked to visitors – what did they like, dislike? What did visitors think should happen to make the place more attractive?
4. Government policy – include information about what government policy is with respect to this place. What is allowed, what is not allowed. Can policy be changed, and by whom?
5. Business opportunities – you have already said there are not enough facilities for tourists. Well, now you need to provide information on what it might cost to put in a nice restaurant for tourists. Suppose in one of your interviews, you talked to a businessperson who said that it would cost R25,000 to put a snack bar by the historic site. You need to give your reader that information, but that’s not all. You also have to provide some information about what a typical snack bar menu would have, how much the food would cost to make and sell, and what price the owner would have to put on each item so that the price would not be too high for people to pay. And your reader has to figure out how many people would have to eat there in order for the snack bar to make money. This is where the statistics come in. Are there enough people who visit now that the snack bar could expect to make money? How about the number of visitors to the other similar place – what if that same number of people came. How would the snack bar do then?

f.     Potential employees. You can’t add facilities without adding people to staff them. Are there enough people in the local community to fill the new jobs that would be added? Do they have the right kind of education and training to fill those jobs, or would the snack bar owner, or the new hotel owner, have to train people, or bring people in from other locations? Could the local school system provide the necessary training?

You do not have to do all the calculations for the reader, but you need to do them yourself so that you know the reader will have enough information in the case to do them. For example, before you can decide whether a snack bar might be a good idea, you have to estimate whether you could get more visitors – and how many more. Can you match the number that go to the other similar place that has facilities? Or is your location so much further to travel that you don’t think that many more people would come. And just how many people have to use the snack bar in order for the owner to get back his R25,000 investment and also make some profit to pay himself a salary? This kind of analysis is really looking at the question of what kind of business opportunities are there. Would a souvenir shop be a good idea?

Did you do this kind of analysis before writing? If not, then you will have to stop and think some more. Maybe you will need to find more information before you can continue writing.

g.       Environmental implications for animal and plant life of changes in the area.

Since you already know that more visitors will cause a change, an important factor to consider is what will be the impact on plants and animals. Some places protect the plants by only letting visitors walk on special paths and visitors cannot pick any flowers or plants. Others say visitors can not feed the animals, or rules say visitors must hire a guide if they are going into certain areas. Whatever the situation, you need to consider this question very carefully.

Other sections of the case. Depending on the case you are researching and writing, the sections of the case will need to be organised so that each type of information is in its own section and understandable to the reader. You might not use all the sections described above, but certainly your case study will need to consider the business and economic implications of tourists for your area, and equally important, the implications for the plant and animal life. Tourism has economic implications and environmental implications. Good planning must take both into account.

Conclusion. Your case will need a conclusion. Rather than putting in your answer in the case, leave the reader with some more questions. For example, you might have learned that there is a government policy that says “No private enterprise is allowed to change any part of the historic site.” So you might conclude with a paragraph like this:

The mayor and tourism minister discussed with the case writers whether or not it would be a good idea to prepare a plan for putting a snack bar inside the old fort without changing the way the building looks. The plan could be used to show the government that a policy change to allow private enterprise would be a good idea. “Is there enough value in adding jobs in the village?” asked one of the case writers. Another said, “I think there is enough evidence that expansion would be the right thing to do.” Still another case writer disagreed. What is your conclusion?

By ending your case on a question like this, you let your readers discuss the situation themselves. If you have written a good case, they will have enough information to understand the situation and have a lively class discussion.

The whole purpose of writing cases and sharing them with others is to share experience without all of us actually having to be in the same place. There is a trade-off between developing a place to make it more accessible to tourist so local jobs can be created and on the other hand protecting the environment from too many visitors. And this is a question that faces more than one country. But how the trade-off is resolved can vary from country to country. One country’s solution might be useful for another country to know.

Making sure your case can be used in another country

Since different countries have different languages and cultures, you need to prepare a note for the instructor giving additional background material that the teacher might need to know in order to help guide the student discussions.

It is often interesting to record any changes that actually occurred after or while the case was being researched and written. Once students have learned about a situation, they find it is very interesting to learn more. But this information should be separate from the case study so that it doesn’t influence the class discussions.

If your case uses special terms, words, or refers to cultural customs that people in another country might not recognise, information about them should be put in the case (at the end in an appendix) or in the note for the instructor.