case study books

Case collection: Harvard Business Publishing

About Harvard Business Publishing

Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) is the leading provider of teaching materials for management education.

HBP was founded in 1994 as a not-for-profit, wholly-owned subsidiary of Harvard University, reporting into Harvard Business School. HBP's mission is to improve the practice of management in a changing world. This mission influences how they approach what they do and what they believe is important.

With approximately 450 employees, primarily based in Boston, with offices in New York City, India, Singapore, Qatar and the United Kingdom, HBP serves as a bridge between academia and enterprises around the globe through its publications and multiple platforms for content delivery, and its reach into three markets: academic, corporate, and individual managers. HBP has a conventional governance structure comprising a  Board of Directors , an internal  Executive Committee , and Business Unit Directors.

About the collection

The Case Centre distributes a comprehensive range of materials including the complete collection of more than 7,500 Harvard Business School case studies, teaching notes, background notes, case videos, and a selection of software ancillaries.

Also included are:

• Brief Cases that are rigorous and compact with five-eight pages and three-four exhibits
• case studies that are popular for undergraduate-level courses
• executive education cases that provide rich yet efficient learning for managers at every level.

Additional top quality HBP teaching materials available from The Case Centre include:

• articles from the  Harvard Business Review  and other top management journals
• case method books from the Harvard Business School Press
• over 2,000  individual chapters  from popular Harvard Business School Press books
• newsletter articles  from Harvard Management Update, Strategy & Innovation, Negotiation, and Balanced Scorecard Report
• Core Curriculum Readings  that cover the foundational concepts, theories, and frameworks that business students must learn. Authored by faculty at Harvard Business School, each Reading includes a teaching note, related course materials, and exhibit slides. Many include test banks, practice questions, video clips, and Interactive Illustrations to enhance student comprehension of specific topics.

HBP also offer a number of free cases.  Browse here

Collection contact

For any queries related to the Harvard Business Publishing collection, please visit:

Travis Stewart e [email protected]

Browse the full collection Browse prize-winning cases

Available from the case centre.

The HBP collection of over 16,000 cases, and their accompanying instructor materials, software and videos, 7,000 management articles and 2,000 individual book chapters are available from The Case Centre.

See what's available

There are restrictions on the distribution of some items. To see any restrictions login to our site (or register if you've not already done so) and use our online search to find the item you're interested in. Any restrictions will be shown alongside the product.

Materials from Harvard Business Publishing are not available to customers at corporate organisations or at organisations in China.

www.hbsp.harvard.edu/educators

Top ten bestselling cases

Browse the top ten bestselling cases from Harvard Business Publishing in 2023.

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Learning with cases can be a challenging experience.

Our interactive study guide takes students through the process, providing practical tips, tricks and tools.

Discover more

Here are our top 40 bestselling books that are sure to spark your interest, strengthen your management skills, and help you get the results you need in business and beyond. These books offer the best ideas in business and have strongly resonated with our readers. Each offers valuable insights to help you succeed in your career.

The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster

In this updated and expanded version of the international bestseller The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins offers proven strategies for conquering the challenges of transitions--no matter where you are in your career. Whether you're starting a new job, being promoted from within, embarking on an overseas assignment, or being tapped as CEO, how you manage your transition will determine whether you succeed or fail. Use this book as your trusted guide.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Mental Toughness (Paperback + Ebook)

If you read nothing else on mental toughness, read these ten articles by experts in the field. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you build your emotional strength and resilience--and to achieve high performance.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself (Paperback + Ebook)

The path to your own professional success starts with a critical look in the mirror. What you see there--your greatest strengths and deepest values--are the foundations you must build on. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on managing yourself and selected the most important ones to help you stay engaged and productive throughout your working life.

Blue Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant

In this perennial bestseller, globally preeminent management thinkers W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne challenge everything you thought you knew about the requirements for strategic success. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves (spanning more than 100 years across 30 industries), the authors argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors but from creating"blue oceans"--untapped new market spaces ripe for growth.

Leading Change

Millions worldwide have read and embraced John Kotter's ideas on change management and leadership. Needed more today than at any time in the past, this immensely relevant book serves as both a visionary guide and a practical toolkit on how to approach the difficult yet crucial work of leading change in any type of organization.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Emotional Intelligence (Paperback + Ebook)

In his defining work on emotional intelligence, bestselling author Daniel Goleman found that it is twice as important as other competencies in determining outstanding leadership. If you read nothing else on emotional intelligence, read these 10 articles by experts in the field.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (Paperback + Ebook)

How can you transform yourself from a good manager into an extraordinary leader? We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on leadership and selected the most important ones to help you maximize your own and your organization's performance.

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail

A Wall Street Journal and Businessweek bestseller. Innovation expert Clayton Christensen shows how even the most outstanding companies can do everything right--yet still lose market leadership. Christensen explains why most companies miss out on new waves of innovation. The Innovator's Dilemma gives you a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.

Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader's Guide to the Real World

As strengths guru and bestselling author Marcus Buckingham and Cisco Leadership and Team Intelligence head Ashley Goodall show in this provocative, inspiring book, there are some big lies--distortions, faulty assumptions, wrong thinking--that we encounter every time we show up for work. Nine lies, to be exact.

Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works

Playing to Win, a noted Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestseller. This is A.G. Lafley's guidebook. Shouldn't it be yours as well? It outlines the strategic approach Lafley, in close partnership with strategic adviser Roger Martin, used to double P&G's sales, quadruple its profits, and increase its market value by more than $100 billion when Lafley was first CEO (he led the company from 2000 to 2009).

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy (Paperback + Ebook)

Is your company spending enormous time and energy on strategy development, with little to show for your efforts? We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on strategy and selected the most important ones to help galvanize your organization's strategy development and execution.

The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success

It's time to redefine the CEO success story. Meet eight iconoclastic leaders who helmed firms where returns on average outperformed the S&P 500 by over 20 times. Drawing on extensive research, author Will Thorndike tells many of these leaders' stories for the first time--and extracts lessons for those of you hoping to lead your company to exceptional returns today.

Dealing with Difficult People

At the heart of dealing with difficult people is handling their--and your own--emotions. How do you stay calm in a tough conversation? How do you know if you're difficult to work with? This book explains the research behind our emotional response to challenging colleagues and shows how to build the empathy and resilience to make those relationships more productive.

Managing Oneself

It's up to you to carve out your place in the world and know when to change course. And it's up to you to keep yourself engaged and productive during a career that may span some 50 years. In Managing Oneself, one of the world's leading thinkers on the practice and study of management, Peter Drucker, identifies the probing questions you need to ask to gain the insights essential for taking charge of your career.

The Mind of a Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

Based on extensive research, including assessments of more than 35,000 leaders and interviews with 250 C-level executives, The Mind of the Leader concludes that organizations and leaders aren't meeting employees' basic human needs of finding meaning, purpose, connection, and genuine happiness in their work. To solve the leadership crisis, organizations need to put people at the center of their strategy.

Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence

Written by three eminent economists, Prediction Machines recasts the rise of AI as a drop in the cost of prediction and lifts the curtain on the AI-is-magic hype to show how different industries can benefit from it. The impact of AI will be profound, but as this book shows, the economic framework for understanding it is surprisingly simple.

Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean

Inc. magazine calls it one of"the best, clearest guides to the numbers" on the market. Readers agree, saying it's exactly"what I need to know" and calling it a"must-read" for decision makers without expertise in finance. Accessible, jargon-free, and filled with entertaining stories of real companies, Financial Intelligence gives nonfinancial managers the confidence to understand the nuance beyond the numbers--to help bring everyday work to a new level.

The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism

Hubert Joly, former CEO of Best Buy and orchestrator of the retailer's spectacular turnaround, unveils his personal playbook for achieving extraordinary outcomes by putting people and purpose at the heart of business.

Human + Machine: Reimaging Work in the Age of AI

AI is changing all the rules of how companies operate. Based on the authors' experience, Accenture leaders Paul Daugherty and Jim Wilson, and research with 1,500 organizations, this book reveals how companies are using the new rules of AI to leap ahead on innovation and profitability, as well as what you can do to achieve similar results.

The Founders Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth

Why is profitable growth so hard to achieve and sustain? When Bain & Company's Chris Zook and James Allen, authors of the bestselling Profit from the Core, researched this question, they found that when companies fail to achieve their growth targets, 90 percent of the time the root causes are internal, not external. Through rich analysis and inspiring examples, this book shows how any leader--not only a founder--can instill and leverage a founder's mentality throughout their organization and find lasting, profitable growth.

HBR Guide to Better Business Writing

When you are fumbling for words and pressed for time, you might be tempted to dismiss good business writing as a luxury. But it is a skill you must cultivate to succeed. The HBR Guide to Better Business Writing, by writing expert Bryan Garner, gives you the tools you need to express your ideas clearly and persuasively so clients, colleagues, stakeholders, and partners will get behind them.

HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations

Terrified of speaking in front of a group? Or simply looking to polish your skills? No matter where you are on the spectrum, this guide, written by presentation expert Nancy Duarte, will give you the confidence and the tools you need to get the results you desire.

Harvard Business Review Manager's Handbook: The 17 Skills Leaders Need to Stand Out

The one primer you need to develop your managerial and leadership skills. Whether you're a new manager or looking to have more influence in your current management role, the challenges you face come in all shapes and sizes--a direct report's anxious questions, your boss's last-minute assignment of an important presentation, or a blank business case staring you in the face.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing People (Paperback + Ebook)

Managing people is fraught with challenges: What really motivates people? How do you deal with problem employees? How can you build an effective team? The answers to these questions can be elusive--even to a seasoned manager. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on managing people to help you deal with these--and many other--management challenges.

StandOut 2.0: Assess Your Strengths, Find Your Edge, Win at Work

From the recognized leader of the strengths movement, Marcus Buckingham, StandOut 2.0 is a revolutionary book and tool that enables you to identify your strengths, and those of your team, and act on them. It also includes the assessment and a robust report on your most dominant strengths. The report is easily exported so you can use it to present the very best of yourself to your team and your company.

Good Charts: The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations

A good visualization can communicate the nature and potential impact of ideas more powerfully than any other form of communication. In Good Charts, dataviz maven Scott Berinato provides an essential guide to how visualization works and how to use this new language to impress and persuade. This book will help you turn uninspiring charts that merely present information into smart, effective visualizations that powerfully convey ideas.

Mindfulness

The benefits of mindfulness include better performance, heightened creativity, deeper self-awareness, and increased charisma--not to mention greater peace of mind. This book gives you practical steps for building a sense of presence into your daily work routine.

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership is a hands-on, practical guide containing stories, tools, diagrams, cases, and worksheets to help you develop your skills as an adaptive leader, able to take people outside their comfort zones and assess and address the toughest challenges. The authors', Ron Heifetz, Marty Linsky, and Alexander Grashow, have decades of experience helping people and organizations create cultures of adaptive leadership.

Influence and Persuasion

Changing hearts is an important part of changing minds. Research shows that appealing to human emotion can help you make your case and build your authority as a leader. This book highlights that research and shows you how to act on it, presenting both comprehensive frameworks for developing influence and small, simple tactics you can use to convince others every day.

Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First

Most executives today recognize the competitive advantage of human capital, and yet the talent practices their organizations use are stuck in the twentieth century. Turning conventional views on their heads, talent and leadership experts Ram Charan, Dominic Barton, and Dennis Carey provide leaders with a new and different playbook for acquiring, managing, and deploying talent--for today's agile, digital, analytical, technologically driven strategic environment--and for creating the HR function that business needs.

How Finance Works: The HBR Guide to Thinking Smart about the Numbers

Through entertaining case studies, interactive exercises, full-color visuals, and a conversational style that belies the topic, Harvard Business School Professor Mihir Desai tackles a broad range of topics that will give you the knowledge and skills you need to finally understand how finance works.

Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence

This is the book that established"emotional intelligence" in the business lexicon--and made it a necessary skill for leaders. Managers and professionals across the globe have embraced Primal Leadership, affirming the importance of emotionally intelligent leadership. The book and its ideas are now used routinely in universities, business and medical schools, professional training programs, and by a growing legion of professional coaches.

Competing in the Age of AI

AI-centric organizations exhibit a new operating architecture, redefining how they create, capture, share, and deliver value. Authors Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani show how reinventing the firm around data, analytics, and AI removes traditional constraints on scale, scope, and learning that have restricted business growth for hundreds of years.

Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take

In this seminal book, former Unilever CEO Paul Polman and sustainable business guru Andrew Winston argue that to thrive today and tomorrow, companies must become “net positive” — giving more to the world than they take. With bold vision and compelling stories, Net Positive sets out the principles and practices that will deliver the scale of change and transformation the world so desperately needs.

Getting Along: How to Deal with Anyone (Even Difficult People)

Work relationships can be hard. The stress of dealing with difficult people dampens our creativity and productivity and can cause us to disengage. In Getting Along, workplace expert Amy Gallo identifies eight familiar types of difficult coworkers—the insecure boss, the passive-aggressive peer, the know-it-all, and others—and provides strategies for dealing constructively with each one.

Love and Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life

In his new book, world-renowned researcher and New York Times bestselling author Marcus Buckingham helps us discover where we're at our best — both at work and in life. In understanding our unique strengths and loves, we can choose the right role on a team, mold our existing roles so it calls on our very best, and as leaders, make lasting change for our teams and organizations.

Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You

Bestselling authors Frances Frei and Anne Morriss argue that the most important thing you can do to be a great leader is to build others up. Showing how the boldest, most effective leaders use a special combination of trust, love, and inclusion to create a space in which other people can excel, Frei and Morriss provide practical tools — along with interviews and stories from their own personal experience — to make these ideas come alive.

Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Change

It's exciting to think of leadership as all inspiration, decisive action, and rich rewards, but leading requires taking risks that can jeopardize your career. In this classic, renowned leadership experts Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky show how it's possible to make a difference in your organization without getting “taken out” or pushed aside. Through vivid stories from all walks of life, the authors present straightforward strategies for navigating the perilous straits of leadership.

HBR's 10 Must Reads for New Managers (Paperback + Ebook)

Develop the mindset and presence to successfully manage others for the first time. If you read nothing else on becoming a new manager, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you transition from being an outstanding individual contributor to becoming a great manager.

Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them

In a world of unprecedented challenges, we need organizations that are resilient and daring. In Humanocracy, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini make a passionate, data-driven argument for excising bureaucracy and replacing it with something better.

Discover more books in the HBR Store

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Business Case Studies

• Books with Cases
• Getting Started
• Harvard Business School Cases
• Diverse Business Cases
• Databases with Cases
• Journals with Cases

Books/eBooks

Selected books with business cases, getting materials not available at bu.

• Open Access Cases
• Case Analysis
• Case Interviews
• Case Method (Teaching)
• Writing Case Studies
• Citing Business Sources

Business cases can be found through a number of books and ebooks in our collection. To locate these items, go to BU Libraries Search and enter terms such as:

"case studies" and leadership "case studies" and project management "case studies" and business ethics "case studies" and diversity

To narrow your search down to Books/eBooks only, use Material Types filter on the right side of the page.

If we don't have what you need, please refer to the Getting Materials Not Available at BU section below. You can also recommend a book for purchase through our Suggest a Purchase page. 

Even if BU Libraries doesn't own something you need for your studies, we can get it for you pretty quickly from another library.

• Interlibrary Loan (ILL) . Interlibrary Loan is a service that allows current BU students, faculty, and staff to request books, articles, book chapters, and other materials from other libraries. Visit our Interlibrary Loan page to find forms to request items.
• BU Libraries Search and WorldCat Discovery. You can look an item up on BU Libraries Search or you can use an external search, like WorldCat Discovery , which will offer you a link to "Find@BU" and this will bring you to BU Libraries Search. When you log in to request the item, some of the item's information will pre-populate in the ILL form for you.

Want to borrow an item in person?

• Books from Boston College, Northeastern, and Brandeis . Books can be borrowed from the libraries of these three institutions using your Terrier card.
• Boston Library Consortium (BLC) Card​s . A BLC Card allows you to borrow circulating material from member libraries , just as you would from BU Libraries. Boston University faculty, staff, and students on the Charles River Campus may obtain a Consortium Card by filling out an  application form . Medical Campus affiliates should apply at the Alumni Medical Library. 

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• Last Updated: Jun 25, 2024 1:35 PM
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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

Hacking the Case Interview

Where can I find MBA Consulting Casebooks?

Below, you will find links to download MBA consulting casebooks from 23 different business schools. These casebooks will provide you with over 700 practice cases that you can use to hone your case interview skills. These cases are a great supplement to the practice cases that consulting firms provide .

The year indicates when the consulting casebook was published. Some consulting clubs publish a new casebook each year while others may use the same casebook for multiple years. Therefore, even the older casebooks can still contain valuable practice cases.

If you’re looking for a step-by-step shortcut to learn case interviews quickly,  enroll in our case interview course . These insider strategies from a former Bain interviewer helped 30,000+ land consulting offers while saving hundreds of hours of prep time.

• Australian Graduate School of Management (2002)
• Booth (2005)
• Columbia (2007)
• Darden (2019)
• ESADE (2011)
• Fuqua (2018)
• Goizueta (2006)
• Haas (2019)
• Harvard Business School (2012)
• Illinois (2015)
• INSEAD (2011)
• Johnson (2003)
• Kellogg (2012)
• London Business School (2013)
• McCombs (2018)
• Notre Dame (2017)
• Queens (2019)
• Ross (2010)
• Sloan (2015)
• Stern (2018)
• Tuck (2009)
• Wharton (2017)
• Yale (2013)

What are Consulting Casebooks?

Consulting casebooks are documents that MBA consulting clubs put together to help their members prepare for consulting case interviews. Consulting casebooks provide some case interview strategies and tips, but they mostly contain case interview practice cases.

While consulting casebooks contain tons of practice cases, there is quite a bit of variety in the sources and formats of these cases.

Some practice cases are taken from actual consulting interviews given by consulting firms. These are the best types of cases to practice with because they closely simulate the length and difficulty of an actual case interview. Other practice cases may be written by the consulting club’s officers. These cases are less realistic, but can still offer great practice.

The formats of the practice cases in consulting casebooks also vary significantly.

Some practice cases are written in a question and answer format. This type of format makes it easy to practice the case by yourself, without a case partner. Other practices cases are written in a dialogue format. These cases are better for practicing with a case interview partner.

How do I use Casebooks to Practice Case Interviews?

How you should use consulting casebooks depends on whether you are practicing cases by yourself or practicing cases with a case partner.

Practicing Cases by Yourself

If you are trying to practice cases by yourself, you will need to find cases that are written in a question and answer format. Only in this format can you read the question, answer it, and then move onto the next question without getting any case spoilers.

To practice cases by yourself, read the case background. Then, summarize the case information out loud, verify the objective to yourself, and then ask clarifying questions out loud.

You likely won’t be able to answer any questions that you have by yourself, but talking to yourself out loud is good practice because it simulates what you would do in a real case interview.

Afterwards, take a few minutes to write out your case interview framework. Treat this like a real case interview, so don’t give yourself unlimited time to think about how you would structure your approach. When you have your framework written out, talk through it like you are explaining it to an interviewer.

Next, move onto the first case question. For each case question, talk through your thinking out loud as if you were in a real interview. If there is math involved, make sure you talk through your calculations out loud.

Once you have finished answering each case question, provide your final recommendation out loud. Make sure to suggest potential next steps.

Now that you have finished the case, you can review your answers and compare them to the sample answers. Try to identify areas of improvement or things that you could have done better.

For a comprehensive guide on how to practice case interviews by yourself, without a case partner, read this article .

Practicing Cases with a Case Partner

If you are practicing with a case partner, decide who is going to be giving the case and who is going to be receiving the case.

If you are giving the case, read the entire case information carefully. It may be helpful to read through everything twice so that you are familiar with all of the information and can answer any question that your partner asks you to clarify.

As the person giving the case, you need to be the case expert.

You should become familiar with the overall direction of the case. In other words, you should know what the major questions of the case are and what the major areas of investigation are. This will help you run the mock case interview more smoothly.  

Depending on whether you want the case interview to be interviewer-led or candidate-led, you will need to decide how much you want to steer the direction of the case.

If your partner gets stuck and is taking a long time, you may need to step in and provide suggestions or hints. If your partner is proceeding down a wrong direction, you will need to direct them towards the right direction.

Caveats to Using MBA Consulting Casebooks

In general, MBA consulting casebooks are great resources because they are free and provide tons of practice cases to hone your case interview skills. However, there are several caveats that you should be aware of.

1. Similarity to Real Case Interviews

Some cases in MBA consulting casebooks are not representative of actual case interviews because they are written by consulting club officers instead of interviewers from consulting firms.

For example, some cases may be too short or too long in length. Some cases could also be too technical or may require you to have specialized knowledge. If you come across a case that is way too complicated or way too simple, keep in mind that the case may not be representative of an actual case interview.

2. Quality of Sample Answers

While consulting casebooks provide sample solutions, these answers are often not the best or highest quality answers. If you use the answers in casebooks as your benchmark for what a great answer looks like, you may not be learning the best way to answer case interview questions.

3. Ease of Use

Consulting casebooks are all written in different formats and by different people. Therefore, it can be challenging to find cases that you can consistently use to practice cases by yourself or with a partner.

Case information may be written in an unorganized way. The main questions of the case may be hidden in the case background information or in the answers. You’ll have to learn the best way to read and digest each case in each casebook.

Recommended Consulting Interview Resources

Here are the resources we recommend to land your dream consulting job:

For help landing consulting interviews

• Resume Review & Editing : Transform your resume into one that will get you multiple consulting interviews

For help passing case interviews

• Comprehensive Case Interview Course (our #1 recommendation): The only resource you need. Whether you have no business background, rusty math skills, or are short on time, this step-by-step course will transform you into a top 1% caser that lands multiple consulting offers.
• Case Interview Coaching : Personalized, one-on-one coaching with a former Bain interviewer.
• Hacking the Case Interview Book   (available on Amazon): Perfect for beginners that are short on time. Transform yourself from a stressed-out case interview newbie to a confident intermediate in under a week. Some readers finish this book in a day and can already tackle tough cases.
• The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook (available on Amazon): Perfect for intermediates struggling with frameworks, case math, or generating business insights. No need to find a case partner – these drills, practice problems, and full-length cases can all be done by yourself.

For help passing consulting behavioral & fit interviews

• Behavioral & Fit Interview Course : Be prepared for 98% of behavioral and fit questions in just a few hours. We'll teach you exactly how to draft answers that will impress your interviewer.

Land Multiple Consulting Offers

Complete, step-by-step case interview course. 30,000+ happy customers.

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When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm Hardcover – October 4, 2022

• Print length 368 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Doubleday
• Publication date October 4, 2022
• Dimensions 6.46 x 1.4 x 9.57 inches
• ISBN-10 0385546238
• ISBN-13 978-0385546232
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Doubleday; First Edition (October 4, 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0385546238
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385546232
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.49 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.46 x 1.4 x 9.57 inches
• #28 in Globalization (Books)
• #269 in Economic History (Books)
• #1,369 in Business Management (Books)

About the author

Walt bogdanich.

Walt Bogdanich has been awarded three Pulitzer Prizes and four George Polk Awards for his investigative journalism. He's written or produced stories for The New York Times, CBS 60 Minutes, ABC News, and The Wall Street Journal. For the past 15 years, he's taught investigative reporting at Columbia University. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in political science and earned a master's degree in journalism at The Ohio State University. A fanatic Cleveland Guardians fan, he lives in Port Washington, NY.

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Written by Graeme Macrae Burnet

Case Study was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022. Graeme Macrae Burnet offers a dazzlingly inventive - and often wickedly humorous - meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself.

‘I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger.’

London, 1965. An unworldly young woman believes that a charismatic psychotherapist, Collins Braithwaite, has driven her sister to suicide. Intent on confirming her suspicions, she assumes a false identity and presents herself to him as a client, recording her experiences in a series of notebooks. But she soon finds herself drawn into a world in which she can no longer be certain of anything. Even her own character…

Published by Saraband.

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Graeme Macrae Burnet

About the Author

Graeme Macrae Burnet on Case Study

‘I love research and of course there’s no shortage of great material on the ‘Swinging 60s’, but for the vast majority of people the 60s weren’t swinging at all. Most folk still lived in post-war austerity Britain, with brown furniture and retrograde social attitudes. So while I did immerse myself in the fiction and memoirs of the 60s, by far the most important research I did was ploughing through issue after issue of women’s magazines from the time - where I found a quite different set of attitudes than the ones we popularly imagine of that period.’

‘I love the fact that people find my books hard to classify.  His Bloody Project  has been called a crime novel, a historical novel, a gothic novel, literary fiction, as well as a true crime book(!). To me, it’s just a novel. Similarly with  Case Study , I didn’t think at all about genre when I was writing it. What I want most is for readers to engage with the characters. I don’t subscribe to the view that you can either have emotional or intellectual engagement – I want both!’

Read the interview here .

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet

What the judges said

‘A mystery story - or is it? - that takes us into the heart of the psychoanalytical consulting room. Or does it? Interleaving a biography of radical ‘60s ‘untherapist’ Collins Braithwaite with the notebooks of his patient ‘Rebecca’, a young woman seeking answers about the death of her sister, ‘GMB’ presents a forensic, elusive and mordantly funny text(s) layered with questions about authenticity and the self.’

What the critics said

Christian Lorentzen, The New York Times Book Review

‘A diverting novel, overflowing with clever plays on and inversions of tropes of English intellectual and social life during the postwar decades. As such, it is not exactly an excursion into undiscovered literary terrain. Reading Burnet’s doubly mediated metafiction of North London neurotics and decadents, I often longed to turn back to the shelf for the real thing […] It’s a compliment to put Case Study in that company and no insult to say that Burnet must have done his homework to get there.’

Malcolm Forbes, The Star Tribune

‘It is an elaborate, mind-bending guessing game; it is a blackly comic and quietly moving study of a nervous breakdown; and it is a captivating portrait of an egomaniac. If the notebooks depict a gripping chain of events, then the biographical sections expertly flesh out the grotesque, manipulative yet charismatic Braithwaite. Macrae has reliably delivered another work of fiendish fun.’

James Walton, The Times  

‘Such admittedly lofty themes might give the impression that Case Study is a rather punishing chin-stroker of a novel. In fact, Burnet’s triumph is that it’s a page-turning blast, funny, sinister and perfectly plotted so as to reveal — or withhold — its secrets in a consistently satisfying way. It also does a fine job of keeping our sympathies shifting, and of conjuring up a lost cultural era. Rarely has being constantly wrong-footed been so much fun.’

Kate Webb, Times Literary Supplement

‘Tortuous, cunning and highly self-conscious new novel, filled with doubles and doppelgängers. Readers who equate self-referentiality with intellectual integrity, or who simply enjoy being toyed with, are in for a treat.’

Allan Massie, The Scotsman

‘Macrae Burnet writes with an admirable lucidity, at the same time being able to probe and shed light on the dark places of the mind. Writing in a prose that is spare, deadpan and yet alive, he poses questions about the nature and perception of what we choose to call reality. He is an uncommonly interesting and satisfying novelist.’

More from the author

Graeme macrae burnet: 'the most important research i did for case study was ploughing through women's magazines from the 60s'.

Nominated for a second time, Graeme Macrae Burnet talks about surrounding his characters with real people, resisting classification… and his favourite Booker books

Read the 2022 longlist: an extract from Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet

Graeme Macrae Burnet offers a dazzlingly inventive meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself. Read the opening of Case Study chapter here

The Booker Prize Bookshop: Supporting Independent Booksellers

Other nominated books by graeme macrae burnet, his bloody project.

Book recommendations

Reading list

The best books of 2022

Information

Scottish Booker Prize nominees

Graeme macrae burnet interview: 'i like to surround my characters with real people'.

Book extract

What everyone is saying about the Booker Prize 2022 longlist

Calling all book clubs join our booker prize book club challenge, 13 things you need to know about the booker prize 2022 longlist, meet the authors: interviews with the booker prize 2022 longlisted writers, quiz: which 2022 booker-longlisted book should you read, share this page.

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Case study definition

Case study, a term which some of you may know from the "Case Study of Vanitas" anime and manga, is a thorough examination of a particular subject, such as a person, group, location, occasion, establishment, phenomena, etc. They are most frequently utilized in research of business, medicine, education and social behaviour. There are a different types of case studies that researchers might use:

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A 2022 Supreme Court opinion.

Supported by

The Gun Lobby’s Hidden Hand in the 2nd Amendment Battle

In the battle to dismantle gun restrictions, raging in America’s courts even as mass shootings become commonplace, one name keeps turning up in the legal briefs and judges’ rulings: William English, Ph.D.

A little-known political economist at Georgetown University, Dr. English conducted a largest-of-its-kind national survey that found gun owners frequently used their weapons for self-defense. That finding has been deployed by gun rights activists to notch legal victories with far-reaching consequences.

He has been cited in a landmark Supreme Court case that invalidated many restrictions on guns, and in scores of lawsuits around the country to overturn limits on assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and the carrying of firearms. His findings were also offered in another Supreme Court case this term, with a decision expected this month.

Dr. English seems at first glance to be an impartial researcher interested in data-driven insights. He has said his “scholarly arc” focuses on good public policy, and his lack of apparent ties to the gun lobby has lent credibility to his work.

But Dr. English’s interest in firearms is more than academic: He has received tens of thousands of dollars as a paid expert for gun rights advocates, and his survey work, which he says was part of a book project, originated as research for a National Rifle Association-backed lawsuit, The New York Times has found.

He has also increasingly drawn scrutiny in some courts over the reliability and integrity of his unpublished survey, which is the core of his research, and his refusal to disclose who paid for it. Other researchers say that the wording of some questions could elicit answers overstating defensive gun use, and that he cherry-picked pro-gun responses.

The Bruen decision in 2022 upended Second Amendment law by sweeping away any modern-day gun restrictions that could not be tied to a historical antecedent. The ruling led to a surge in firearms cases — to an annual average of 680 today compared with 122 in the decade before. Pro-gun rulings have also risen: The 74 issued last year make up a quarter of all such rulings since 2000, according to researchers at the University of Southern California. Courts have struck down restrictions on high-capacity magazines in Oregon, handgun purchases in Maryland and assault weapons in California.

Dr. English’s brief in the Bruen case.

Here’s an example of that missing context.

The paper quotes a survey question, omitting the setup to it, which is highlighted below in blue.

Many policymakers recognize that a large number of people participate in shooting sports but question how often guns are used for self-defense. Have you ever defended yourself or your property with a firearm, even if it was not fired or displayed? Please do not include military service, police work, or work as a security guard.

Other questions followed the same pattern of omission. This one, about AR-15-style rifles, included text before and after the question in the version respondents saw, but not in the paper.

Some have argued that few gun owners actually want or use guns that are commonly classified as ‘assault weapons.’ Have you ever owned an AR-15 or similarly styled rifle? You can include any rifles of this style that have been modified or moved to be compliant with local law. Answering this will help us establish how popular these types of firearms are.

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