Marketing professor honored for work as case-study reviewer

By Chuck Gordon

Since joining the faculty of the Porter B. Byrum School of Business in 2023, Dr. Jennifer Zarzosa has really embraced the use of short case studies to get her marketing students to grasp certain concepts.

For one thing, students need context.

"The concepts we've been talking about in the textbook haven't really changed," Zarzosa says. "They're frameworks that have existed for 50, 60 years. You might think, This is boring, right? But if we use a context that excites students, that's when the learning happens."

Zarzosa has become such a proponent of the three-page case studies published in the Journal of Critical Incidents (JCI) that last year she was named an associate editor. And she did such a good job reviewing articles that the journal's publisher, the Society for Case Research, recently gave her its Outstanding Reviewer Award for 2025.

Zarzosa started using case studies in class in her previous role teaching graduate students at Henderson State University in Arkansas. But after moving to Wingate, she realized that the 15- to 20-page Harvard Business Review cases she used with grad students might not be appropriate for undergraduates.

"The reason I have embraced writing cases in JCI is that I love that three-page limit," she says. "I know if I assign a Harvard case, some of them will read it, but some of them won't be able to get through all 15, 20 pages."

Context is also extremely important, and when she's writing case studies - usually at least a couple of times a year - Zarzosa chooses topics she knows will be of interest to her students. In the past she's examined the recreational-cannabis market in California and the resale of vintage clothing, and she's planning to examine the behavioral and economic shifts caused by GLP-1 drugs (such as Ozempic) in the near future.

The most recent case study she's written is on Lil Miquela, a "virtual influencer" (i.e. not human) whose creators have recently partnered with a nonprofit focused on recruiting bone-marrow donors. In class, she says, she'll discuss not the ethics of the partnership but the effectiveness of it.

"Does it make sense to use a nonhuman for a cause, to get Gen-Z'ers to donate their bone marrow when the stakes are high?" Zarzosa asks. "Is it trivializing the mission of the nonprofit, or is it actually helping? That's kind of the angle."

In class, students work in small groups to present the case and then lead the discussion of it with their classmates. Presenting cases that appeal to students leads to robust discussions. "I believe that having students present on the case studies was a great idea that encouraged deeper thought and conversation on the topics that may not have otherwise occurred," one comment in a student evaluation read.

But Zarzosa, JCI assistant editor for marketing and management, was honored for her reviewing, not her writing. She typically reviews 13 case studies per issue. Although the case studies are only three pages each, she also has to scrutinize the teaching notes that go with them. The notes, which can run to 20 pages, are used by professors in class.

Of the 13 or so case studies she reviews per issue, Zarzosa will reject three or four. The rest will be sent on to one of two editors, who will decide which to include in the issue.

"What I'm looking for when I'm reviewing something is that the claims being made are supported by the case facts," she says. "Sometimes I see that authors either don't have theoretical grounding or they have a response in the teaching note that's not actually supported by what's in the case facts."

Zarzosa says that making sure the theory is sound is a professor's biggest concern when it comes to case studies, but students mostly want to be able to tie the theory to something familiar and interesting to them.

"I like this format, because everything is changing and because context is king," she says. "They need to care about the protagonist. They need to care about the problem. They need to feel that tension.

"I'm excited to keep examining emerging contexts like this, anything that helps students experience marketing as a living, evolving discipline."

Find out more about studying marketing at Wingate University.

March 27, 2026