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$a Cases In Financial Management, Directed Versions Financial management can be a fascinating, exciting subject, yet students often regard it as being either too mechanical or too theoretical. However, one can overcome this misconception and demonstrate the inherent richness of finance by relating the various topics to practices in the real world. Years ago we found that if we illustrated a point by referring to an actual situation, our students curiosity intensified, their powers of concentration sharpened, and we were able to impart more knowledge than if we dealt strictly with abstractions or hypothetical situations. We then began using cases in our courses, primarily Harvard cases, but the experience was not satisfactory, at least not in our intermediate level undergraduate and introductory MBA courses, where we use a combination of lectures and case discussions. To be most effective, we needed a set of cases (1) which deal with the major principles and analytical techniques that are covered in the current mainline texts and which, in consequence, reinforce and illustrate the concepts that are covered in those texts, (2) which contain both numerical and conceptual questions designed to stimulate discussion, (3) which can be worked (generally) in 3 to 5 hours, and (4) which serve to illustrate how computers can be used in financial analysis. Alternative Versions of the Casebook Although our cases served our needs well, we and others concluded that we needed somewhat different versions of the cases, and different numbers of cases, in different situations. Accordingly, we have developed several alternatives as discussed below. The Directed Casebook. The directed casebook, which is a direct descendent of our original casebook, has been renamed Cases in Financial Management, Directed Versions. We use the word directed in the title to signify that these cases have end-of-case questions. To create this casebook, we reviewed and screened all the cases we had developed over the years. Overall, after years of use, we have been satisfied with the original cases (at least for some purposes as we explain later), so we decided it would be best not to try to fix something that wasn`t broken. Therefore, the changes in the directed casebook are generally minor-we updated, revised, and improved the cases, and we changed some data in almost every case so that student `solution banks` developed for the first casebook could not be easily used with this casebook. However, the general `look and feel` of the 41 cases in the directed casebook is similar to our earlier casebook. The Nondirected Casebook. Even though we were generally satisfied with the format of the cases in our first casebook, at times we wished we had cases that were less directed. The end-of-case questions provide guidance to students and help keep them on the right track, but these questions have a serious drawback-students do not have to develop a strategy for solving the case, which is perhaps the most important skill in real world problem solving. Therefore, we wanted to have some cases that do not lead students by the hand but, at the same time, do not leave them in such a quandary that they can`t get started. We believed that the solution to our problem lay in a new type of case-one which replaces the end-of-case questions with one or two paragraphs of executive guidance. These cases would require students to develop their own approach to the case solution, but they would be receiving some guidance, just as managers typically receive some guidance from senior executives. We chose 20 of our most-used cases and recast them into new `nondirected` cases. First, we moved any essential data that appeared in the questions to the body of the case. Then, we replaced the questions with one or two `executive guidance paragraphs.` The end result is a set of 20 cases that require students to develop their own approaches to solving the case, but which still provide sufficent guidance to point them i n the right direction. This new casebook is titled Cases in Financial Management, Nondirected Versions. The BY REQUEST System. When we first developed the nondirected cases, we thought we would use them in our MBA courses while using the directed cases in our undergraduate courses. Our rationale here was that graduate students would be better able to structure case solutions, hence require less guidance. However, the advent of the BY REQU1i system has caused us to change our minds. BY REQUEST is a system t permits instructors to create a customized casebook consisting of number of cases selected from the entire set of 61 directed and nondirected cases. The BY REQUEST system thus allows instructors to create casebook that includes a mix of directed and nondirected cases. Now t an easy, cost-effective way exists to use both directed and nondirec cases in a single course, we plan to use both types of cases in our cour We will start with some directed cases to give students an idea of whG good case solution looks like, and then end the course with so nondirected cases, to give students experience in crafting solut strategies. In that way, we can have the best of both worlds, and students will gain the most value from the course. We have used the directed cases primarily in the second-level undergraduate course, although we have also used them in both introductory and advanced MBA finance courses. In the future, we will likely use a mix of directed and nondirected cases in all of our courses. For both types of cases, we generally require each student to work the case, although we do encourage them to work in groups. Often we have students, in groups of 3 to 4, make presentations, and we and the other students serve as the Board of Directors, asking questions much as a real board would do. We also require students to write up and hand in a number of the cases, primarily because we feel that they need practice writing but also to ensure that they are working the cases. We, and others, have found that using cases makes it much easier to motivate our students, majors and nonmajors alike. Students can see the importance of finance in actual business decisions, and, for many students, the cases have transformed finance from a sterile, mechanical, and overly theoretical subject into an interesting, pragmatic one. Also, by demonstrating why it is important to master theory, the cases actually cause students to learn more of the abstract, theoretical material than they would otherwise.
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