Our Annual Case Awards

Case writers are often under recognised in comparison with colleagues of similar stature publishing in refereed journals.  So it's always a pleasure and a privilege for ecch to play some part in redressing that imbalance through our annual Case Awards.  We took the decision only two years ago that the Awards should reflect our global presence by being open to entries from around the world, so it's such a pleasure to see our winners this year represent thirteen schools, seven countries and four continents.

This year’s Awards demonstrate the widespread excellence in case writing and teaching taking place around the world and the relevance to the current economic climate of subjects being taught. The era of cases originating predominantly in only the historically most well known business schools is past. Relevant and effective cases are being demanded, used – and produced, worldwide.

Congratulations to all our winners and especially to James A Erskine, Michiel R Leenders and Louise A Mauffette-Leenders of the Richard Ivey School of Business who were awarded the Outstanding Contribution to the Case Method award in recognition of their work in bringing the case method to thousands of faculty worldwide through more than 400 case writing and case teaching workshops in more than 50 countries over the past 40 years.

Full details of the Awards may be found here: www.ecch.com/awards2012.

As the Olympics approach, the Hot Topic for next year’s awards is The Business of Sport.

What We Mean When We Talk About the Digital Classroom

The problem with new technology is that by the time most people know what they mean by 'new technology' it's no longer new.  New has moved on like someone you'd like to be friends with but they've upped and left for another school, another job, or sometimes just died.  And yet we all (sort of) know what we mean when we talk about new technology, or the digital classroom, or whatever else we call the business of transacting at a distance what we used to do face to face.  It would help if we could separate the long term relationships and values being expressed and the temporal technological developments we might use and which flit by too quickly for the non-obsessed to keep pace with.

In fact, I'm not bothered by this dislocation between retaining (not preserving - retaining) long-term values and keeping up with what's novel.  It seems to me it's a healthy place to be, that tug back against a too ready acceptance of the new.  Remember the craze for CB radio?

Today's FT carries a feature on an innovative use of technology by Boston University School of Management, where they are bringing live contributions from business leaders into classroom  project work and case discussion.  The article identifies how this radically alters the role of faculty from 'sage on the stage' to 'guide on the side'.  It certainly looks like the BU faculty and students benefit from this digitally enhanced learning and it reinforces my own sense that moving from sage to guide chimes precisely with the strengths of the case method so that case discussion is positioned strongly to take advantage of new technologies (whatever they might be), and in any event certainly better than other approaches to teaching and learning.

The article quotes Ellen Rubin, vice-president at Terremark, "No matter how well the case is written, to hear from someone who was in the trenches and had to make a decision, there's no comparison".   I take that as a call to take advantage of the opportunities technologies give us to develop the case method rather than replace it.  

Pears Business Schools Partnership case studies and lectures

The Pears Business Schools Partnership is a collaboration between Cranfield School of Management, London Business School, Said Business School and Pears Foundation to stimulate student engagement with the themes of sustainable and responsible business in society and to take into their leadership careers a desire, a willingness, to seek out and implement innovative models for change.

The Partnership has commissioned the development, publication and teaching of twenty seven case studies on the value that businesses and business leaders bring to society, and an annual lecture by a leading business figure who is using the power of business to make a positive difference.

Last night I attended the 2^nd annual Pears Business Schools Partnership lecture delivered by Sir Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, who delivered a compelling call for businesses to connect more strongly with fundamental social and ethical imperatives.

Sir Andrew sees this as an important time to consider the intersection of business with society. Why? Because trust in the private sector has eroded and corporations have become more de-humanised over the past twenty years. In order to redress the balance, businesses need to place the values of the individual at the heart of everything they do – staff, customers, suppliers and shareholders – and align themselves with lasting personal, social values. Those that do are more likely to be more successful and sustainable and to have a more authoritative voice on key issues. And the key player is the CEO, who must have the courage to "...stand in front of the mirror and ask ourselves – what’s the most we can do to make a positive difference, to do better, be responsible, to keep challenging and demanding better?"

At ecch we're delighted to be playing a small part in disseminating the cases produced under the partnership. Sir Andrew Likierman, Dean, London Business School, said last night: “It is inspiring to hear Sir Andrew Witty outline the important role businesses can play in contributing to our society, and emphasise the business benefits of doing so. At London Business School, we have always believed that good corporate responsibility and ethical business go hand-in-hand with successful business practice, and it has long been part of the core curriculum in our MBA programme. The Pears Business Schools Partnership, through the rich case studies it is producing, is helping that aspect of our work even further.”

Nine case studies are being written by each Business School and we will be assessing their impact in the classroom. The case studies feature companies such as Innocent, Proctor & Gamble and UBA Group, and examine the diverse and imaginative ways businesses contribute to society and generate positive value as a result of their work. All the case studies will be published online and in a summary brochure later this year.

Barriers to developing schools adopting the case method

Our recent feature www.ecch.com/developingcountries on how emerging economies are discovering the benefits of using the case method in management education seems to be well timed. I also came across this blog from Professor Erhan Erkut exploring the barriers to adopting the case method for those coming to it fresh and with limited resources.  There are huge benefits to a school adopting the case method: local cases written by local authors immersed in the social and business cultures, research links with their local business communities, international exposure to other schools adopting the cases.   But we'd be doing ourselves a disservice if we weren't also aware of the barriers that can get in the way of a developing school, however committed, wishing to adopt the case method for the first time and professor Erkut's post does well to highlight an earlier research paper by Marina Apaydin.  Both illustrate a need for increased co-operation and support from western schools and academics.  We're trying to do our bit, too, and will be running a workshop dedicated to academics from emerging markets later this year - details to follow.  I'm also interested to see if the increasing use of mobile technologies acts as another barrier or actually eases entry into the use of cases, given the huge penetration into emerging markets.  But that's something for my next post, I think.

Entrepreneurship? It ain't worth a thing if it ain't got that swing

Regular readers will know that I love jazz and have drawn comparisons between it and case writing/teaching as two great American art forms constantly reinvigorated by adoption and adaptation in the rest of the world.
Seems that business academics and practitioners can learn some wider lessons from jazz and how it's organised and led.  Research into entrepreneurial leadership at Warwick University says that entrepreneurs and leaders of entrepreneurial teams can learn a lot from how the jazz greats lead their ensembles.  Entrepreneurial Teams: Insights from Jazz by Deniz Ucbasaran, Mike Humphreys and Andy Lockett (any relation to the sax player Mornington Lockett?) won an award for best paper at the 2011 ISBE conference.
Now the story is running in the jazz press
A jazz setting would make for a great case study, maybe in the style of Raymond Chandler:

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark little clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed entrepreneur ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars. (adapted from the opening paragraph of The Big Sleep)

Now that's an opening.

Journal of Academic Writing

The European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing has just published the inaugural edition of the Journal of Academic Writing   The journal, which is international and peer reviewed, focuses on researching and debating best practices in the teaching of academic writing.  It's interdisciplinary but there is much that will be of interest to case writers including this article by Liz Cain and Ian Pople on writing practices in Business Studies.
Interestingly, those writers interviewed in the study make no reference to case writing, which led me to think about the status accorded to case writing in comparison to other forms of academic writing.  Case writers conduct and convert research into written accounts just as in other forms of academic publication, so what leads to their work being under reported even in studies specific to their subject area, where one would expect recognition of the form to be almost universal?
This peer reviewed journal is a welcome contribution to the academic study of the value that good writing brings to education.  Our annual awards for case writers make a contribution, of course, but we must find a way of doing more.

Reports of the death of the case study have been greatly exaggerated (again)

The launch of Harvard Business School's FIELD programme has led, though not by HBS itself, to some thoughts that the days of the case study may be numbered.  In fact HBS is building on the strengths of the case method by beefing up the student learning experience through a blend of cases (including those researched and written at its increasing number of overseas research centres) and the FIELD programme's immersive experiential learning.

That this could be taken to mean the end of the case method is a misunderstanding of what the case method is about.  Working through a case is not a poor replica of real life, and is not intended to be.  It is a different form of experience - rather like how watching sports or opera or the report of an international trade negotiation on television is different from being there, never mind experiencing it as a player, performer or diplomat.   Different but, in many respects, better. On television I get better angles of view, expert analysis and commentary and a much clearer picture of what is going on and why one team loses or wins, or a performer moves us or a negotiation is lost - something that often the players themselves or, more often, the losing managers, don't always know themselves.

In the same way, a good case study provides the clarity and analytical rigour for which real life doesn't allow time.  HBS is recognising this by retaining the mix of case study and experiential.  Reminds me more of Executive education, than a New Orleans band marching us to the grave of the case method.