Carin-Isabel Knoop is the founder and executive director of the Harvard Business School Research and Case Writing Division.  This conversation was spurred by two things, one that I found out on the Business Breakdowns podcast last year that Harvard Business School Publishing is larger than Forbes, and two that I’ve also always been curious about how case studies are actually written.  Anyone who has done security or competitive analysis will appreciate the level of detail that goes into a case.

This is similar to the great conversation I had last year with Paul Edelman, who has developed psychological tests to find talent for leading hedge funds.  I would encourage you to listen to that one if you haven’t, Paul is great at breaking down conceptual thinking.

Cases are used to teach decision making and business reasoning for analysts, business owners, consultants and investors, but what are the decisions that go into the cases themselves and why are they such a good tool for teaching this mode of thought?  What I found was intriguing and in some ways pleasantly surprising, and Carin was great fun to talk to.  Please enjoy our discussion.

Carin-Isabel Knoop is the Executive Director of the Harvard Business School Case Research and Writing Group which she began in 1995.  Previously she was a consultant at McKinsey and Price Waterhouse Coopers.  Carin has her bachelors summa cum laude in Government, Economics and International Relations from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Harvard Business school with honors.  She is also a very active writer on Medium and where she writes about creating better workplaces.

https://carinisabelknoop.medium.com/