Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California
The following books and articles have been nominated by me and other faculty and students as among the more influential case studies within their respective areas of research and teaching:
Alexander, Jeffrey (1988), `Culture and Political Crisis: Watergate' in Durkheimian Sociology: Cultural Studies, edited by Jeffrey Alexander (New York: Cambridge University Press),187-224.
Allison, Graham (1969), 'Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis', American Political Science Review, Vol. 63, No. 3, pp. 689-718, (Allison, Graham T., (1971) Essence of Decisionmaking: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston, MA: Little Brown).
Argyris, Chris (1974), Behind the Front Page. (Jossey-Bass Behavioral Science Series, reproduction of 1974 edition).
Becker, Howard S., Blanche Geer, Everett C. Hughes, and Anselm Leo Strauss, Eds. (1991), Boys in White. (Transaction Publishers).
Berger, Arthur A. (1996), Manufacturing Desire (New Brunswick, NJ:Transaction Publishers), 41-56. ('1984: The Commercial')
Cantor, Muriel (1971), The Hollywood Television Producers. (New York:Basic Books).
Carey, James W. (1989), 'Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph', Communication and Culture. (Boston: Unwin Hyman), 201-230.
Coleman, James S., Elihu Katz, and H. Menzel (1966), Medical Innovation: A Diffusion Study. (Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill).
Conaway, Carol B. (1996), 'Framing Identity: The Press in Crown Heights', Research PaperR-16. (Cambridge: The Joan Shorenstein Center, Harvard University).
Crain, Robert L., Elihu Katz, and Donald B. Rosenthal (1969), The Politics of Community Conflict: The Floridation Decision (Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company).
Dahl, Robert A. (1961), Who Governs?. (New Haven: Yale University Press).
Davidge, Carol (1987), 'America's Talk-Back Television Experiment: QUBE' in Dutton, W. H., J. G. Blumler, and K. L. Kraemer (eds.), Wired Cities: Shaping the Future of Communications (Boston: G.K. Hall), 75-101.
Dayan, Daniel and Elihu Katz (1988), Articulating Consensus: The Ritual and Rhetoric of Media Events' in Durkheimian Sociology: Cultural Studies, edited byJeffrey Alexander (New York: Cambridge University Press), 161-186.
Dutton, W. H. (1981), 'The Rejection of an Innovation: The Political Environment of a Computer-Based Model', Systems, Objectives, Solutions, (1): 179-201.
Dutton, W. H. (1982), 'Politics, Planning, and Modeling', International Journal of Policy Analysis and Information Systems, 6(1): 65-89.
Dutton, William H., and Kenneth L. Kraemer (1985), Modeling as Negotiating: The Political Dynamics of Computer Models in the Policy Process. (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation).
Dutton, W. H., Elberse, A., and Hale, M. (1999), 'A Case Study of a Netizen's Guide toElections', Communications of the ACM (12): 48-54. Accessible on the Web at: http://www.acm.org/pubs/articles/journals/cacm/1999-42-12/p48-dutton/p48-dutton.pdf
Eisenstein, Elizabeth (1968), 'Some Conjectures about the Impact of Printing...' Journal of Modern History, 1968, 1-56. (Eisenstein, Elizabeth (1980), The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, 2 vols, Cambridge University Press.)
Flora, J. A., Maccoby, N., and Farquhar, J. W. (1989), 'Communication Campaigns to Prevent Cardiovascular Disease: The Stanford Community Studies' in Rice, R. E. and Atkin, C. K. (eds.), Public Communication Campaigns, Second Edition (Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications).
Gans, Herbert J. (1962), The Urban Villagers: Group and Class in Life of Italian-Americans, New York: The Free Press.
Gans, Herbert J. (1979, 1980), Deciding What's News, New York: Random House, Vintage Books.
Glasgow Media Group (1976), Bad News, London: Routledge and Paul Kegan.
Goldman, R. (1992), Reading Ads Socially (London and New York: Routledge), 173-201. (Levi's 501s)
Greyser, S. A. (1992), Cases in Advertizing and Communications Management, Third Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall), see sports sponsorship, pp. 384-414.
Hall, Stuart, John Clarke, and Tony Critcher (1978), Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order, Holmes, Meier Publishers, Inc., pp.53-119.
Kaufman, Herbert (1960), The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behaviour. (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press), reprints available through Resources for the Future, Inc.
Peltu, M., et al. (1996), 'Computer Power and Human Limits', in Dutton, W. H. (ed.), Information and Communication Technologies -- Visions and Realities. (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 177-95.
Lang, Kurt and Gladys Lang (1953), 'The Unique Perspective of Television and Its Effect', American Sociological Review, 18(1), pp. 103-112, McArthur Day Parade.
Meyerson, M. and Edward C. Banfield (1955), Politics, Planning and the Public Interest. (New York: The Free Press).
Nye, David E. (1990), Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Pressman, Jeffrey L. and Aaron B. Wildavsky (1973), Implementation. (Berkeley, CA: UC Press).
Rochlin, Gene I. (1991), 'Iran Air Flight 655 and the USS Vincennes: Complex, Large-Scale Military Systems and the Failure of Control' in T. R. La Porte (ed.), Social Responses to Large Technical Systems. (Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishing).
Rogers, Everett M. and Judith K. Larsen (1984), Silicon Valley Fever, New York: Basic Books.
Selznick, P. (1949), TVA and the Grassroots: A Study of Politics and Organization. (Berkeley, CA: UC Press).
Silverstone, R. (1996), `Future Imperfect: Information and Communication Technologies in Everyday Life', pp. 217-231 in W. Dutton (ed.) Information and Communication Technologies -- Visions and Realities. (Oxford: Oxford Un. Press).
Smith, Erna (1994), 'Transmitting Race: The Los Angeles Riot in Television News', Research Paper R-11. (Cambridge: The Joan Shorenstein Center, Harvard University).
Vidich, A. J., and Bensman, J. (1958, 1968), Small Town in Mass Society. (Princeton: Princeton University Press): 348-396.
Whyte, W.F. (1953, 1943), Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. (Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press).
CRITO CASES
CRITO researchers Kenneth L. Kraemer and Jason Dedrick have completed case studies of three personal computer manufacturers: Dell, Compaq and Acer. These cases give an overview of each company's business model, strategies and organization, they go into a detailed study of how each company uses information technology to run its business. Finally, each case shows the company's performance over time and draws conclusions about the relationship of IT to performance.
The three companies illustrate very different stories. Dell has used IT to refine and extend its direct sales model through improvements in internal operations, and by using the Internet as a tool for sales, marketing, service and coordination with business partners and suppliers. Compaq has built extensive systems to improve its planning and production processes, but has struggled to match Dell's operational and market performance. Acer is a skilled manufacturer, but its highly decentralizedorganization made it difficult to coordinate the activities of its many business units. It is now streamlining its organization and developing information systems to improve internal and external coordination.
These cases present interesting contrasts in the interaction of strategy, execution and IT in driving firm performance. They are available on the CRITO web site at the following addresses:
Compaq
HTTP://www.crito.uci.edu/consortium/PUBLIC-PUBS/COMPAQ-CASE-9-99.PDF
Dell
http://www.crito.uci.edu/consortium/public-pubs/dell-final-v-5-99.pdf
Acer
http://WWW.CRITO.UCI.EDU/consortium/public-pubs/acer_case_10-99.pdf