Q&A

Before you use the case, please read “how to use” first.

It is a project by Kokuryo research laboratory at Keio University that started from 2003 summer to make business case materials public on line. Currently, case materials developed for academic use by Kokuryo research laboratory are mainly made public to enable free use and distribution. The disclosure is made under the license of Creative Commons.

License is a rule or permission for use in using case materials. The details of the license are available here. The key points of the license are:

  • The case can be used free of charge under conditions no payment is involved such as for self-managed study group or case study at school.
  • Under conditions where payment is involved such as at training/study group at profit organization or paid seminar at non-profit organization, we ask for payment to partly contribute to the cost for material development by self-enumeration method.

Case material means “business case” here. Business cases are description of specific entities’ business strategy, performance, current status and historical background etc. to be able to understand the fundamentals of running business. Development of business cases involves information gathering, hearings and interviews at companies, to comprehensively gather facts and backgrounds, so the workload is quite heavy.

  1. Please see “how to use” for the process for use such as case material download.
  2. Generally, case materials usages are: reading to learn the facts about companies and strategies, in classes at schools, and by case study/self-study groups.

When you quote a part of the contents of the case materials or refer in an articles or books, you must show the attribution of the case. In such a case, please clearly state the name of the case and the author.

The purpose of this project of material sharing is to enable free use and distribution of case materials to the extent possible. The case development requires enormous amount of cost. The money we collect will be used to lessen the burden of the developer and reinvested to new case development.