UMGC Library: Business Research: Case Studies

Finding Case Studies

Business case studies are summaries of real or fictional business situations. Case studies are frequently used to analyze the events that led to a particular company's success or failure and may also be used to illustrate theories studied in business and management classes.

Case studies can be found in these different types of resources:

Finding Case Studies in Library Databases

ABI/INFORM Collection

You can find case studies in ABI/INFORM Collection by following the directions shown in the screen shot below:

Enter search term(s) in box(es).
Use menu arrows beneath Document type: to select Case Study.

Business Source Ultimate

You can find case studies in Business Source Ultimate by following the directions shown in the screen shot below:

Enter search term(s) in box(es).
Use menu arrows near Document Type to select Case Study.

You may want to use the Number Of Pages option (listed under the Document Type option) to ensure that the case studies that your search retrieves are a certain length (e.g., greater than 4 [pages]).

BuildingGreen Suite

You can find case studies in BuildingGreen Suite by clicking on the Case Study Articles link on the database's home page. Case studies in the database focus on building projects that demonstrate sustainability principles.

Gale Business: Insights

You can find case studies in Gale Business: Insights by clicking on the Advanced Search link below the search box on the database's home page. On the advanced search page, enter a company or topic of interest in the search box and scroll down the page to select Case Studies in the "by content type" section.

SAGE Business Cases

You can find case studies in SAGE Business Cases by simply entering a company or topic of interest in the search box on the database's home page. Note that you can also browse cases by discipline, geographic region, or case collection.

Other databases

You may be able to find case studies in other UMGC Library databases by conducting a keyword search for your topic, along with a keyword search for "case stud*" (e.g., ford AND marketing AND "case stud*").

(The asterisk in the search statement above is a truncation symbol that tells a database to retrieve various endings of the term preceding the asterisk. So, for example, searching for "case stud*" will find articles containing case study (singular) as well as articles containing case studies (plural).)

Finding Case Studies in Print Books

You can find case studies in print books in the UMGC Library's catalog, catalogUSMAI, by following the directions shown in the screen shot below:

Use the drop-down menu to specify that you're searching for subject words. Then enter case studies and use the drop-down menu to specify that this is a two word phrase.
Enter search term(s) in box(es).

Finding Case Studies in Ebooks

UMGC Library Ebook Collections

You can find case studies or information about case studies in online books in UMGC Library eBook Collections by following the directions shown in the screen shot below:

Enter "case stud*" and then add additional search term(s) if desired.

O'Reilly

You can find case studies in online books in O'Reilly by following the directions shown in the screen shot below:

Enter "case studies" AND along with your search term(s).

Finding Case Studies on the Free Web

Available for Free

There are a few noteworthy sites that provide free online access to case studies, including:

Available for Purchase

Many publishers or clearinghouses of case studies charge a fee for access to their case studies. Although you may search their websites for case studies on particular topics, you will generally need to pay a small fee in order to access the entire case study. Some of the best-known commercial vendors of business-related case studies include: