Case in point

Entrepreneur, August, 2003 by Joanne Cleaver

Your local business school might be able to make your company stronger--if you're willing to spend some time and effort as the subject of a case study or class research project. Ask Gretchen Fox.

Fox was a big proponent of flat corporate organizational structures. When it was obvious her company, Fox Relocation Management Corp. of Boston, was growing too fast for her to directly manage every employee and project, she still clung to her "circle of equals" philosophy. It took a group of graduate students at Boston's Simmons College School of Management to change her mind.

Fox agreed in late 1999 to be the subject of a case study in professor Cynthia Ingols' class on organization structure. "It helps to look at your own organization through somebody else's eyes," says Fox. "I saw the positive results of our organization structure, and I saw the disadvantages." Fox took the students' advice and hired project managers.

"In any major metropolitan area, faculty members are looking to do case studies," says Ingols. Particularly popular are marketing, management and business growth studies. Be prepared to spend several three-hour sessions introducing students to your company/industry and giving them a behind-the-scenes tour of your financials and operations.