Antecedents of team performance on case studies in a strategic management capstone course

•Emphasize principles of experiential learning and student responsibilities in this method.•Motivate and ensure students to prepare for case studies before team meetings.•Monitor students' progress and provide frequent feedback.•Enable students to socialize extensively before forming their teams.

Acquisition of knowledge and skills through team-based case studies is a common pedagogic approach in the strategic management courses. This study explores why some student teams perform better in case study work than others. Several variables associated with team attributes and their effects on team performance were examined. Results showed that effects of the independent variables varied in relation to subjective SA (“self-assessed”) team performance and objective EA (“expert assessed”) team performance. Except for the grade/performance orientation, other independent variables, including team process effectiveness, analytic orientation, learning orientation, and advance preparation showed a positive relationship, and diversity showed a negative relationship with subjective SA performance. In contrast, only two independent variables, advance preparation, and diversity, were related to objective performance EA; the former had a positive relationship and the latter had a negative relationship.