Virtuous cycle of case writing: Benefits for all

Having spent 20-plus years in business education, I am too familiar with the existing gap between the academic educational content and companies’ needs. In the highly dynamic business environment of today, it is a challenge for academics to keep pace with the latest trends. And that’s why leading business schools abroad – following the example of Harvard Business School (HBS) - employ the case method as a direct tool to bring business into the classroom.

The case method is a powerful mechanism for delivering real life learning into the management classroom. A case is always based on real events in a real organisation. If it is fictional, then it is not really a proper case, but a textbook exercise. Of course, some cases may disguise the name of the company or the individuals; this may be done for various reasons. Case writing is not limited to telling the story itself, but also requires that the professor creates a teaching note where she or he defines the expected students’ learning outcomes and explains how the case should be used in class.

There are two types of cases: decision cases and descriptive cases. In a ‘decision case’ the student is placed in the manager’s position, and is asked to analyse a business dilemma and recommend a decision. A ‘descriptive case’, otherwise also called a ‘case study’, is a description of a real situation. A ‘descriptive case’ will require the student to evaluate the situation and determine if there was a more effective way to handle it. Both types of cases are of high learning value since they help students develop critical thinking abilities and decision-making skills. Indeed, judgment and experience are at the core of managerial success; so it is important that students are confronted with real-life cases, where they can practice those skills.

Teaching via business cases has been a growing trend, which, however, is restricted by the limited number of available cases. The HBS has the most established reputation in publishing cases, most of which are based on US companies. The HBS pioneered the case method in 1919, and now it produces around 350 new cases each year, which is about 80% of all cases sold throughout the world. However, only one third of the cases produced by HBS are international, and most of those are based on companies from China or India. Students in Europe, and in Cyprus in particular, want to learn not only from US-based cases, but from local cases too. It makes a huge difference when students are taught via the story about a local company they can identify with. In other words, there is an increasing need to generate new cases, which refer to non-US companies. Management theory is well understood only after practical application. Students outside the US need to see that the theory is useful and fully applicable in their own countries.

The HBS monopoly has begun to shrink; more and more cases are distributed by The Case Centre (formerly European Case Clearing House) or via different case research societies. In fact, The Case Centre by now has accumulated the largest worldwide collection of cases (with the HBS’ collection as a big part of it). Many European business schools have taken the opportunity and created their own case collections - advancing their reputation and ranking position. IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, ESSEC, to name a few, have embraced the opportunity to use case research to strengthen their academic programmes, while at the same time delivering value to local companies.

The case method relies upon the open and willing participation of companies in sharing their management stories with academic case writers researching a case. This is something new for businesses in Cyprus. They may not be eager to share the information - being unaware of the multiple and repeating benefits of case writing for participating companies. The benefits include the free business consultancy, which comes as a result of the close cooperation between the firm and the business school. Moreover, a published case which features an interesting business dilemma or tells a story about innovative management practices brings continuous positive publicity to both the company and the academic institution, especially if the case wins in an international case writing competition.

One example of such mutually beneficial collaboration is my work with Engino.net, a Cypriot SME located in Limassol. It is an export-oriented firm producing construction toys of its own unique design. Back in 2011, the owner Costas Sisamos faced a difficult dilemma with his outsourced production in China. When I heard Costas’ story of moving the production from China to Cyprus, I was convinced it was worth sharing with my students.

The Engino case that I wrote is a decision case for the subjects of Finance and Strategy; it places students in the position of Costas Sisamos and requires them to come up with the best solution for the situation that Costas faced in 2011.

In the quantitative subject of Finance that I teach, I want my masters’ students to connect numbers to an actual business situation and to use those numbers – in combination with non-financial considerations – to help develop the right strategy.

As I worked on the case, Costas became interested to see, from my secondary research, that in 2011 a discussion started among economists about western companies withdrawing their manufacturing from China and bringing it back home, to the US or Europe. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) argued for the government support of this hopeful trend, which promises to improve US competitiveness and help the country grow out of its debt. Europe in general and Cyprus in particular are in a similar situation: European countries need to boost their competitiveness as the best remedy to solve financial problems.

When I ran the Engino case for the first time in class in February 2014, Costas Sisamos came to the students’ presentations and wrote to me the next day: “It was very interesting to have seen all the presentations of your students at CIIM. To be honest I felt very proud to hear the Engino name again and again and even more proud to have seen that students actually do believe in us and in Cyprus.” The Engino decision to move production to Cyprus has brought positive results, proving that innovation and manufacturing have a place on this island. Recently, some large European companies have brought production back to Europe, for example, Philips moved its manufacturing to Netherlands in 2013, and Adidas built a large automated factory in Germany in 2016.

The Engino case has certainly made an impact. It became the first ever case about a company from Cyprus published in a prestigious academic journal (Business Case Journal of the American Society for Case Research, Summer issue 2015) and the first ever case from Cyprus to win in an international case writing competition (The Case Centre Award 2017).

The recent top prize from The Case Centre, the world’s largest distributor of business cases, proves, firstly, that Cyprus has remarkable entrepreneurial stories to share, and secondly, that CIIM, as a unique business school of Cyprus, is fully able to compete at the international level since it is now in the Case Centre’s winners list alongside with Harvard, Stanford, INSEAD, IMD.