When I was in business school, it was easy to access case studies recommended by professors or classmates. If you really wanted to, you could buy copies for a few dollars, or, more likely, you could access the cases for free at the library–as nearly every business library in the country subscribes to the Case Study content. That is, they pay a fee for access, and everyone with access to that business library can review the Case Studies to their hearts' content.
Recently, Harvard Business Review, the publishers of the Case Studies, have put up high walls around their content. Professors have been warned that they are not to link to HBR case studies anywhere in their course material unless they are willing to pay for it. Further, the content itself is now "read only", meaning it cant be shared or printed.
Harvard's point, well articulated here in the Financial Times, is that the Cases are still available for free as research tools, but not when they are being used as part of a teaching curriculum. They point out that this has always been the case, but that they have altered the technology to better protect their content.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I see three options:
- Academics grumble but eventually accept the new rules, and Harvard's model becomes the model for all academic materials.
- Academics grumble really loudly, and Harvard relents, finding a new approach
- Academics grumble so loudly that entrepreneurial folks hear the grumbling and develop new academic teaching materials which displace Harvard's Case Studies as the gold standard for Business School teaching.
Option 2 is unlikely as anyone who has ever tried to convince Harvard to move graduation day away from Mid-afternoon on a Thursday. Option 3 requires someone else to come up wtih content that is more effective than the Case Study–which is possible, but hasn't happened so far–in fact the Harvard Case Studies are more popular than ever.
It may be because of my Harvard ties, but I am betting on option 1.
