Case Study Handbook: How To Read, And Write Controversy About Cases

HAR VA R D
B U S I N E SS
S C H O O L
P R E SS

What Is a Case?

E xc e r p t e d fro m
The Case Study Handbook:
How to Read, Discuss, and Write Persuasively About Cases

By
William Ellet

Harvard Business School Press
Boston, Massachusetts

ISBN-13: 978-1-4221-2448-2
2448BC

Copyright 2007 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

This chapter was originally published as chapter 2 of The Case Study Handbook:
How to Read, Discuss, and Write Persuasively About Cases, copyright 2007 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.
What should he say at the United Nations?
Student A: He shouldn’t give in to the environmentalists.The country should be free to do what it wants inside its borders.That’s nobody else’s business.The environmentalists should worry about problems in their own countries.
Instructor: So he should go it alone, then? Say you were interested in putting your money into the country.Which would you prefer: a gov- ernment open to discussion and negotiation about issues, or one that takes a hard line with outsiders?
Student A: I guess I would want the government to be willing to talk.
But I don’t think this is an issue that needs to be discussed.
Instructor: You said you think environmental groups should only con- cern themselves with issues in their home countries?
Student A: Yes.
Instructor: Does Malaysia have a strong environmental movement?
Student A: I . . . I don’t know.The case doesn’t say.
Instructor: Let’s assume it doesn’t. Does an environmental point of view have any utility for a developing nation? Are there any results that could damage the country’s development, or is it just a matter of saving, say, a
The Harvard Business School case “Malaysia in the 1990s (A)” begins with the prime minister of the country, Mahathir bin Mohamad, about to address the United Nations General Assembly and have meetings with potential investors. Western environmentalists have been criticizing his country for deforestation. The prime minister must consider his country’s development strategy in relation to internal and external interests. At the end of the case, he is left wondering whether he should accept his speech- writers’ confrontational statements dismissing the environmentalists and their criticism.The rest of the case doesn’t report only those facts relevant to the controversy or offer the views and reasoning of all the parties to the dispute and evaluate which one has the most legitimate position. Com- pared with a news story or textbook, the case’s opening and closing sections seem to have little to do with the text in