How to write

a public
policy case
A grounding on public policy
and business management
case differences
 – Business cases aim to teach managerial concepts across sectors
– However, fall short on driving public leadership because
How are – they emphasize
public policy – reasons over emotions,
– economics over politics, and
cases – material benefits over intangibles and meanings
different from – Public policy cases focus on the protagonists (ideally) acting in the public
management interest
– Public leaders tend to face broader, more ambiguous aims than their
cases? business counterparts
– Public policy makers function within more diffuse power structures
– Public policy makers are accountable to a wider array of stakeholders
Three areas to
contrast public – On power and authority of the players in these cases
policy case – On aims and objectives of the case protagonists

with a business – On accountability of the case protagonists

case
 – In management cases, normally…
– The case is driven more around the CEO and/or one key
decision maker of the firm
– Power position(s) at the top of the hierarchy,
– Cases showcase the leadership built on a (typical) top-down
strategic decision making organisation
– – except in cases dealing with org design and structure
– In public policy cases,
– The protagonists from a wider variety of roles
– From a very complex power/ hierarchical structures and
– From a range of public service positions ---- resulting in
– Cascade of power structure; decision making and intrinsic
diffusion and profusion of conflict and resolution forms

Authority vs power
portrayal in cases
 The aim of government – to further the public interest

Notion of public interest is difficult to define

Aims and • No clear bottomline, no clear way to quantify the benefits, no clear outcome

objectives of • Can cover economics, ideology, public safety, public security and national
security, geo-political relationships etc…

the public • Maximisation objectives may not work

• Public policy makers and implementers face scrutiny of:
policy • Efficiency
• Opportunity fairness
projects • Procedural fairness
• Outcome fairness and
• Balancing the trade-offs of priorities

A public policy case reflects these competing interests, allows the

reader to articulate their own notions as well
 – We need to appreciate the policy makers’ implementers for their
accountability>>
– To stakeholders within and outside their immediate organisation
– To recognize the roles of:
Accountability – Voters
of public policy – Service users
– Tax payers
projects – Empoyees
– Elected officials
– Other branches of government
– Non-profit organisations
– Businesses and others
Connect – Cases can be used:
research – To learn about the uncharted phenomena;
– To explicate existing theories; and
to – To examine interesting outliers or to explore unknown archetypes
teaching
– How to go about in each of these scenarios?
 – To develop a case that explores a new phenomena…>
– The setting tends to come first and the learning objectives or wider
theory are refined later
– One may begin by an overarching observation or question, and
various scenarios emerge. For example…there could be
– An organisational set up, that works in a way that re-affirms a theory or
conflicts an existing theory
Researching – Or the program goes in a counterintuitive way (just as we learnt from
Aadhaar history)
for a case…1
– Writing a case is an opportunity to learn more – to look for the cause
and effect that can help the phenomenon in a clear way
– One can identify the trends or themes that help make a sense of the
observations
– It ultimately leads to a Descriptive case or a Case Note that’s based on
various insights
 – For a case that explicates an existing theory….
– The learning objectives and theory are identified first
– A case setting is selected to illustrate them
– By applying a theory to a specific case situation, the teacher and
students
Researching a – Have an opportunity to test its boundaries and consider how it can
case …2 inform policy making
The approach can lead to developing decision-focused cases where the
application of the theory helps determine how to approach the
dilemma at hand
By reasoning through the decision, students develop a deeper
understsanding of the theory and how it applies in practice
 – Examining outliers of a system --- do not merit our attention at
this juncture for the case topics handling, hence we may differ our
Researching a discussions on this…
case…3 – If any of you are interested, we can connect separately on this
dimension
 – Case research and writing process have a promise to :::
– Unfold and open up insights and secrets of a program/ scheme/
project/ experiment and help develop a model to get developed

Developing a – Its is therefore, a good thing to start by selecting:

–
public policy –
A setting
A set of learning objectives and a broad storyline to describe and
case>>> discuss

– HOWEVER,
The focus of the narrative and learning objectives may change as the
research process reveals new, perhaps, unexpected facets of the story
Let us look at – Say 5 minutes…

the task on
hand.. After a – The next session will be on architecture for our case writing
short recess… project…
 – Use of multimedia in case
– https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/caseconsortium/casestudies
The Haiti case /124/casestudy/www/layout/case_id_124_id_850.html

– https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/public-policy-case-collection
A podcase and – https://eproduct.hbsp.harvard.edu/eproduct/product/p_human_at
_the_core/instructor/index.html
its use in a
class – Courtesy: HBSP 04 Oct, 2022
Kudremukh – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWq-JARC7Lw
IOCL Video
Case
Approaches in
– https://www.bu.edu/ctl/teaching-resources/using-case-studies-to-
case writing teach/
and using