Case Study Methodology as an Educational Tool for Fashion Business Management

During the past decade the fashion industry has changed dramatically. It is entering the most complex and sophisticated business situation seen so far. Tough strategic and managerial challenges continuously test fashion companies’ strength. Thus, in order to continue progressing in the industry, future managers should be very well prepared to deal with this complex situation and trained so they can make the correct decisions in all the trade-off choices they will encounter. Bearing in mind this complex situation for the industry, our fashion business school advocates the use of the case method as the main educational tool in all the programs offered. Used first by Harvard Business School and now used in almost all the best business schools worldwide, this method is a very effective educational tool that presents great challenges faced by real companies and encourages the student to adopt the role of the company’s decision-maker. The main objective of this paper is to introduce the benefits of fashion business education using real company cases, as well as to recommend this as a reliable learning method for this industry. To do this, we will: (1) explain what this method is and how it should be used in order to be effective, (2) explain why we consider the use of this method to be relevant, particularly in fashion business education, (3) share both our experience as a fashion business school – through teaching and writing fashion company case studies – and the feedback provided by some of our former students, most of them working in executive positions in major fashion companies. In addition, we will encourage the publication of new cases that present real challenges currently faced by companies in this industry. We believe that sharing business experiences can be a very good way for us all to contribute to ensure the whole industry functions well.