Coffee – the most popular free case
The story of Brazilian coffee farmers and their innovation journey, documented and explored in this business teaching case, has retained its place as one of the most popular teaching cases in business schools around the world. Coffee of Andradas: Building a Brand to Help a Community was a best-selling free case in 2024, and still remains one of the most popular in 2025, an achievement that underscores the case’s global academic impact and its role in advancing discussions on sustainability, branding and economic development. The most popular cases are based on usage worldwide during 2025.
Fairphone – in the classic case collection
The Case Center’s top 10 classic cases from 2025 cover 10 subject categories and a free case category. All cases more than 10 years old are eligible, and recognition in this award category is based on the number of organisations ordering and teaching the case over the last five years. RSM’s Fairphone: Organising for Sustained Social Impact case explores the smartphone brand that uses ethically sourced materials and manufacturing in an effort to improve the social welfare of underrepresented mine and factory workers along the mobile phone industry’s supply chain. This teaching case has been a longstanding success for RSM’s CDC – it was recognised back in 2018 when it won the Entrepreneurship category at The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2018.
Self-driving cars – a bestselling case for ethics and social responsibility
Whom to Save: Ethics for Self-driving Cars appears in the Case Center’s list of top 10 annual bestselling cases for ethics and social responsibility. It explores ethical questions concerning self-driving cars – such as should a car protect the driver at the expense of other traffic users? Should the government step in and define ethical boundaries, and what does that mean for other stakeholders? And who is liable for damage done in an accident? Is it the driver, the programmer, or the government?
Wide reach, enduring relevance
CDC’s delighted Managing Editor Tao Yue said. “These recognitions reflect the wide reach and enduring relevance of our cases and align with RSM’s strong performance in The Case Centre Impact Index over the past three years. The winning cases originate from diverse sources – our regular case writing workshops, academic research, and field engagement – showing that impactful cases can emerge in many ways. What unites them is our faculty members’ belief in the original ‘spark’ of these materials, followed by careful design. In an increasingly technology-mediated learning environment, the case method remains essential for fostering deep discussion and tacit knowledge transfer.”
What’s next?
The CDC team has a busy year ahead and plans to keep working with RSM faculty members to develop, finalise, and test a wide range of new teaching cases. Some are close to publication. The team offered a first glimpse of three of its forthcoming teaching cases:
- AI, ethics, and market strategy: When AI-driven pricing strategies come under public scrutiny, how should a marketing manager balance personalization, profitability, and fairness?
- Leadership, HR, and organisational culture: When years of tolerated misconduct are exposed at an iconic organisation, how can leadership and HR translate damning investigation findings into policies that restore trust, safety, and performance?
- Digital transformation and change management: As expectations outpace delivery, how can a patient-driven digital platform overcome legacy systems, regulation, and stakeholder resistance to transform fragmented healthcare?
There’s also a regular calendar of RSM Case Community Brown Bag seminars. These are interactive discussions about creating memorable teaching cases and the CDC has provided reviews of key takeaway information from the most recent seminars on the website. The next session in March will focus on how to develop ‘snap cases’ that capture the complexity of fast-changing geopolitical environments and the date will be confirmed by the Case Development Centre on its webpages
