AOM and the impact of technology on case writing

I finally broke my duck and made it to AOM for the first time this year http://meeting.aomonline.org/2011/ and it was great.  San Antonio, Texas, had just celebrated passing it's 100th day of temperatures over 100 F.  But I have to tell you that the discussion in the case round table that I moderated was just as intense.  It was great to be in the company of so many enthusiastic exponents of case writing.  I hope we can play a part in providing a similar workshop at next year's event in Boston.  Thanks to Marilyn Taylor (Bloch School of Management, University of Missouri), Josh Daspit (University North Texas) and Mark Jenkins (Cranfield) for making such a successful bid to the Academy.  We had a full house of over 40 participants and a quality discussion.

High on the agenda was how to make use of new technologies without either distorting the case or sinking under the additional costs of producing video and other features.  The solution, we thought, is to keep it simple and not try to compete with the high-end production values of the film, tv or games people.
Why?
Because good quality audio is more important that video.  Users can accept and accommodate lower grade moving images if the sound quality is good.  Skyped interviews can be arranged quickly and conveniently and cheaply without the cost (in time and money) of high-grade location recording.

And because text with short imbedded clips (audio or video) may be better pedagogically and preferable to expensively integrated multimedia. It's easy to do, technically, and can be done by one person working alone.  There is also a strong argument that students get most of the information through the text and that teh dynamics of working the case in the classroom deliver the engagement and real time experience that we look for in multimedia.  The hard bit is in working through the pedagogical differences between structuring a rich-text document and the traditional written case.

Excellence in Practice

EFMD has recently announced the winners of its annual Excellence in Practice Awards (EIP). recognising outstanding learning and development partnerships and are judged by a panel of experienced learning and development professionals from both the providing and client sides of the sector.  This year's five category winners were:

Award for Organisational Development Category:

The Royal Bank of Scotland with INSEAD and Wharton School / University of Pennsylvania for 'The RBS Leadership Development Programme'

Award for Executive Development Category:

Microsoft and  Emerging World (formerly Adopt a Business) for Microsofts 'Innovation through Partnership: Creating a Global Leadership Program at Microsoft Benefitting Leaders, the Business and Society.'

Award for Talent Development Category:

Royal Philips Electronics and  Center for Creative Leadership and The Wharton School / University of Pennsylvania for 'Philips Octagon - A Partnership for Leadership and Excellence

Award for Professional Development Category:

ING and 'the world we work in' for 'Accelerating Professional Development and Strategy Execution: The ING Group High Impact Performance for Specialists'

Special Cases Award:Arcelor Mittal and TMA World for 'Global Push...Local Pull: Mobilising and Sustaining Enterprise-wide Training Globally at Arcelor Mittal'

All the winning cases can be viewed on the EFMD website together with details of how to submit a case to the 2012 awards.

EFMD case writing competition

ecch is supporting the 2011 EFMD Case Writing Competition by judging the "Best of the best" category winner. 

The deadline for submission is September 17^th, 2011.  Submit your case by visiting the EFMD Case Writing Competition Page

The competition has fourteen categories:

EUROPEAN CATEGORIES

•                Corporate Social Responsibility: Sponsored by IE Business School, ES

•                Entrepreneurship: Sponsored by E.M. Lyon, FR

•                Finance and Banking: Sponsored by Toulouse Business School – Groupe ESC Toulouse, FR

•                Supply Chain Management: Sponsored by BEM Bordeaux - ISLI Global Supply Chain Management, FR

SPECIAL CATEGORIES

•                NEW Latin American Business Cases: Sponsored by Universidad Externado de Colombia, CO

•                NEW MENA Business Cases: Sponsored by HEC Paris in Qatar, QA

•                Responsible Leadership: Sponsored by University of San Diego, School of Business, US

•                Family Business Sponsored by The Family Business Network International, CH and International Family Enterprise Research Academy, CY

•                Sponsorship Opportunity Emerging Chinese Global Competitors

•                Euro-Mediterranean Managerial Practices and Issues: Sponsored by Euromed Management, FR

•                Public Sector Innovations: Sponsored by Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, CA

•                African Business Cases: Sponsored by China Europe International Business School, (CEIBS), CN

•                Indian Management Issues and Opportunities: Sponsored by Emerald Group Publishing Ltd, UK

•                Sponsorship Opportunity Inclusive Business Models

Also for the first time in 2011 and in collaboration with ecch, the competition has a “best of the best” award where an overall winner will be selected.

For more information and to submit your case, please visit: http://www.efmd.org/case

The 2010 winning cases are available at: Case Winners 

ecch case award presentation

While attending AOM in San Antonio, I had the pleasure of presenting Michael Jarrett (INSEAD) with the ecch Case Award for the Human Resource Management/Organisational Behaviour category.  The winning case  Richard Murphy and the Biscuit Company (A) was co-authored with Kyle Ingram (London School of Economics) whilst both authors were at London Business School.


The temperature at AOM was incredibly hot, even for Texas.  As you can see from the photo, Michael had the sense to dress for the weather while I did not.

  

AOM

Off to AOm early tomorrow morning and looking forward to moderating an early Saturday morning professional development workshop on case work.  It's already oversubscribed so should be interesting!

The pleasure of conferences is making new friends and meeting old ones.  Come and say hello at the ecch booth or at the workshop.

Technology and learning

The use of social media by participants in the recent disturbances in the UK has highlighted how difficult is to to predict how new technologies may be applied or which groups will adopt them.

Nicole Ames of Boston University School of Management has challenged her students to build a social media cloud marketing plan for IBM - who provided materials to kick start the project.  Five student teams analysed Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, search engine optimisation and mobile marketing to recommend strategic approaches for IBM.  Interestingly, they went off-brief to comment on the IBM web site - another example of users taking control of the agenda in unexpected ways.

While Nicole Ames and her students are having fun with the media, other schools are experimenting with the hardware.  Many schools are now pre-loading content, including case studies. on to tablet devices.  So far the iPad is coming out ahead of Kindle in student satisfaction surveys.  These are necessary early steps but more interesting stuff is yet to come as schools move beyond providing access to content and start to explore the pedagogic possibilities of instant interaction within and without the classroom, within and without the student body.

All experience of technological roll-out suggests that while schools may have an agenda for how the devices should be used, students will speedily begin to adapt use to their own purposes.  Social media, unlike the more traditional push media like print, empowers users and challenges existing structural hierarchies.  Such as, for example, the traditional role of the teacher.

While the attributes of the case method approach should play well in the new environments, traditional lecturing will be more challenged.

Attributes of excellence

..is the title of a very interesting read in the latest (July/August) edition of BizEd.  Jerry Trapnell of AACSB and W. Randy Boxx of the Harry F. Byrd Jr School of Business, Shenandoah University, take a look at the attributes of business schools pursuing accreditation.
Many of the key attributes are supported or supplied by writing and teaching with cases:

• a high level of engagement with internal and external stakeholders (case research and writing engages with business  and case teaching with students)
• excellent teaching and strong student learning (case teaching challenges the best teachers and delivers an engaged, better classroom experience to students)
• high quality research (case writing engages with research activity and delivers...)
• a relevant curriculum (...teaching cases that align teaching and research)  
• a global perspective   (ecch distributes cases from around the world written by faculty engaging with their local business, economic and social cultures)
• current trends and technology  (cases deliver rapid up to date business experience into the classroom)
• emotional grounding  (has anyone ever engaged with a case in the classroom and not been better grounded emotionally as a result?)