Teaching and the Case Method
Barnes, Christensen and Hansen (1994)

Acknowledgments

This book is the result of the imagination and effort of a great number of people. We wish to take this opportunity to thank, all too briefly, those whose contributions have made its development possible. We are in their debt, as will be the instructors who use this volume to improve discussion teaching at their own institutions.
The cases in this edition are the product of a cooperative venture among the authors of this book, colleagues here at Harvard University, as well as other academic institutions, and seminar partici- pants who shared their classroom experiences. So many will benefit from their generosity. We also acknowledge our debt to the authors and/or pub- lishers of articles included in the reading sections of the seminar outline. Their essays present useful insights for understanding the teaching opportuni- ties described in our case histories.

Our collective efforts to create a teaching program focusing on a case discussion pedagogy gained sig- nificant and unique support from the milieu in which we worked. With obvious bias, we believe the Harvard Business School is a great teaching in- stitution. Over the decades, its culture has been supportive of the centrality of teaching to the mis- sion of a professional school; "How did class go today?" is a typical first question at a faculty lunch- eon. Its promotion-reward system is supportive of superior teaching; senior faculty are expected to mentor younger instructors. Organizational prac- tices insist that faculty invest considerable time in designing and implementing course outlines as well as in planning daily teaching tasks. Research and teaching are linked in numerous ways; central is the expectation that faculty members will develop cases for their own and other courses. We hope this third edition will honor that tradition and help interested colleagues learn more about the artistry of discus- sion teaching.

Our program to develop a faculty seminar on case method instruction has benefited from the long- term enthusiastic support of the Harvard Business School's leadership. With special appreciation, we note the contributions of former Dean George P. Baker and former Director of Case Development Andrew R. Towl, who were responsible for initiat- ing this effort in 1968, as well as Dean John H. McArthur, who, with his colleagues former Asso- ciate Dean Dean W. Currie, Senior Associate Dean William A. Sahlman, Associate Dean Linda S. Doyle, and Associate Dean Ralph James, have pro-

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