Quick Case Submissions
Guidelines for Prospective Authors
The submission form can be found below the following guidelines.
Thank you for your interest in publishing a Quick Case. Please read these guidelines carefully. The criteria below distinguishes successful submissions from unsuccessful ones. If your submission suggests you have not read this guidance, we will decline your submission without comment.
You should also review several published Quick Cases and teaching guides on our website to understand what these materials look like and how they are written to facilitate rich discussions. Some particularly strong examples include DineTogether: Discriminating Tastes?, Golden Careers: Money Isn’t Everything, VirtuAI: Who Should Our Software Be?, Onboarded and Included, and AFS: Flagging the Next Product Line.
What a Successful Quick Case Does
A good Quick Case does the following:
It has neutral language that shows the story and enables readers to infer insights on their own. It does not use interpretive language that tells the reader what to think. For instance, a passage should not state that Company X was the most successful firm in its industry and that its founder was a genius with a revolutionary idea. Instead, if these assertions are true, the details presented in the Quick Case can enable students to piece together this truth with sentences such as, “From 2019 to 2023, Company X had a CAGR of 75%” and “Company X’s founder developed a new technology that reduced marginal production costs by 30%.”
It is concise. Quick Cases do not exceed 750 words; as such, they should cover only one or two topics. A good submission can be much shorter than 750 words.
It places The Scenario near the beginning to quickly orient the learner into the situation. The Scenario identifies the role that the learner is assuming, summarizes the context for this role, and establishes the tension or quandary the learner must resolve.
It has a defined decision point (The Ask) that has real stakes for the decision-maker and the organization. The Ask should contain only one or two questions. It should be concise. If The Ask comprises multiple questions, delete those that preface a “real” Ask. For instance, it should not include a first question that asks readers to identify what factors the protagonist should consider.
It has a decision-maker who possesses the authority and responsibility to respond to The Ask.
It has dramatic tension and suggests uncertainty about what the protagonist should do. Quick Cases should not read like histories that explain an event, retrospective stories of success or failure, or magazine articles written to justify a certain conclusion.
It contains enough information to enable students to analyze what is going on, decide what the protagonist should do, and contribute to the class discussion. Quick Cases do not assume students are subject-matter or industry experts. There should be enough material in the Quick Case to help students induce relevant insights for a productive class discussion.
It has potential answers to The Ask that are not obvious. If the answers are easy, the Quick Case is not worth writing or using class time to discuss.
Note: Most Quick Cases are about fictional companies, although they can be inspired by real events. The action in The Scenario can also occur outside a real company, such as in a fictional consulting company that is attempting to pitch its services to a real company. If your submission focuses on a real company with a real person as the protagonist, you should have a contact at that company who can facilitate the company’s signoff. We cannot publish a Quick Case about a real company without authorization.
What a Successful Quick Case Teaching Guide (TG) Does
A Quick Case needs a good teaching guide to succeed. Many prospective adopters will not use a Quick Case if the associated teaching support is inadequate. An effective TG does the following:
It sets context. The TG should begin with a synopsis that identifies the Quick Case’s key facts and the decision point in The Ask. It should then identify one or two learning objectives and any references to relevant research that informs them. When applicable, it can also identify useful optional approaches for engaging students, such as analyses they can submit in advance, poll questions, or breakout groups. However, it should not make student presentations or small-group discussions central to the class experience because these approaches do not work for all audiences.
It includes a full discussion plan. A TG should offer a plausible sequence for how class discussion might flow, typically from general to specific topics that lead toward recommending courses of action. This plan should cover 20–40 minutes of class time.
It provides questions that can facilitate a discussion with diverse perspectives. The answers a TG suggests should be sufficiently nuanced to require some elaboration and account for disagreement. If the answers are straightforward and obvious, the teaching guide—and possibly the Quick Case—is inadequate to sustaining a good discussion. For especially challenging topics, the TG should anticipate and highlight potential difficulties during the discussion, including concepts that students may not understand, facts they might not identify, or emotionally sensitive material, and suggest tactics for mitigating these challenges.
It has a scope of coverage comparable to that of the Quick Case. The amount of material a TG covers should correspond roughly to the scope of information in the Quick Case. TGs that contain topics extending well beyond the Quick Case material and that assume extensive familiarity with the new topics often lead to disengaged students and a lecture rather than a discussion.
It shows how to integrate theory and frameworks with the Quick Case. If the TG contains conceptual material, the relationship between the concepts and the discussion should be clear. A TG should not contain a long discussion of theory that fails to reflect material in the Quick Case. For instance, if a TG contains a discussion of informal networks, the Quick Case should give students specific facts about how the networks operate among the individuals and organizations it depicts. The TG should explicitly guide the instructor about how to incorporate the conceptual material into the discussion.
Using Generative AI and ChatGPT
We understand our contributors may want to use generative AI such as ChatGPT to research story ideas and examples. When creating the Quick Case, teaching guide, and supplemental materials, you are always accountable for the work, its accuracy, and its integrity. As such, please refrain from using generative AI to create Quick Case content.