Hi everyone and welcome to today's webinar, Master Case Writing, How to Write a Successful Teaching Case Study. My name is Sarah Anderson and I'm the Cases Marketing Manager at Emerald Publishing. Before we start today I'd like to mention a couple of housekeeping items. The webinar is going to be recorded and I will send out the recording to you in an email following the session and please feel free to share this with colleagues who might be interested.
If you prefer you can also find a PDF of the presentation slides in the handout section of the panel on the right hand side of your screen and that will be available throughout the presentation. The session should last one hour. If you want to ask questions as we go please feel free to put those in the question panel which you'll also find on the right hand side of your screen in the GoToWebinar viewer and we'll have time to answer your questions at the end. So on that, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our speakers for today.
First, we welcome Dr. Michael Goldman, who teaches on the University of San Francisco's Sport Management Master's Programme. Michael also holds an adjunct faculty role with the Gordon Institute of Business Science in Johannesburg, and is also the Editor-in-Chief of Emerald Publishing's Emerging Markets Case Studies Collection. And we'll also, from Emerald Publishing, we have Melissa Close, who is our Cases Publishing Lead. And Melissa today is going to officially launch three of our 2023 case writing competitions.
And we'll share details on how you can enter. So I'm now going to hand over to Michael to begin today's session. All right. Thank you.
Here we go. Let's share that window. OK.
There we go. So I think you should be able to hear me and see some slides. So good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Hello, everyone from everywhere around the world.
Delighted to spend some time with you today. As mentioned, Michael Goldman, I teach in a number of places and really for our conversation today, the focus is around case research, writing and teaching. I'm very pleased to work with our associate editors and the team at Emerald Publishing to publish over 140 quality cases.
in the emerging market case studies collection every year and these cases really focus on the decisions that managers and entrepreneurs and business leaders are making in these emerging markets so we're very excited about that i have previously played a role within the north american case research association nacra and so can share some thoughts about what we're seeing in this case research space so what i thought might be useful for the next half an hour or so is to run through some prompts, some triggers for conversation. And I do look forward to a conversation. I look forward to your comments in the questions section of the software so that we can talk about some of these issues that we all face as we try and craft compelling case studies that bring content alive, that take students into places that they're not familiar with. and help them apply theories in a rigorous way that turns them into better managers, because we really want to make an impact in management education. And the kind of case study research and case study writing we do is all designed to make sure that the classrooms come alive, that assessments are rigorous and useful, and that students walk away with the kinds of outcomes that allows them to make an impact in the broader society.
So it's an exciting field, and we think case research and case studies are an important... important part of making that contribution. So three kind of points I want to touch on over the next half an hour.
Firstly is why do case studies and share some thoughts with you about really what's emerging in this space and how business schools and management departments around the world are starting to think about the impact and broader use of case research and case studies studies as part of a portfolio of intellectual contribution. I want to dive into what is a discussion-based case study, because certainly case research can be used in a number of ways and written up and published in a number of ways. And so we're going to deep dive a little bit into what is a case study and what makes a great case study.
And then thirdly, how to do some of this and talk about some of the key processes or steps in moving a case project forward. So whether you're just starting out today, this week on an interesting case study idea, or whether you've only got a few pages to go and you're refining your case study, I hope today's session will be useful to you in those areas. As always, the questions are open, so look forward to your comments and questions as we go through the conversation.
I like this quotation from Michael Porter. He spoke at a recent North American Case Research Association conference, a NACRA conference, which happens in October every year. And he made this statement as part of some prepared comments that he gave.
So let me pause and let you read that. And then tell me what you think. Let's see if you can throw in some questions or in the question area. Tell me what you think about a quotation like this. from Michael Porter.
So what jumps out at you? What do you take away from a statement like this? Let's see who's going to be first to type something in. I'm looking left, I'm looking right. Oh, could be someone in the back of the room.
Who's going to tell us what they think? Any reflections? Any thoughts?
I'm not seeing them come through on my screen. All right, here we go. Okay, thank you. I see Ashima is first to my screen here.
Theory is good, but without application, it just stays in papers. So Ashima kind of making the point here about the connection between theory and application. and Michael Porter really talking about the kind of work he did, the kind of impact he's been able to make by connecting these different pieces, by looking perhaps at the phenomenon, at the thing that he wants to study from a number of different angles.
And as Ashima says in the Q&A section here in the software, talking about the connection between theory and practice. talking about, again, the balance between statistical work and the importance of depth case studies. Karin talking about context or details are important.
Statistics can only communicate so much. Ray Harper talking about research needing to be practical and applicable. And Ritaparna talking about management is all about capturing realities.
So, Ritaparna, let me end off with your comments there because I think that's so important about the contribution that a case study can make. to our research, to how we investigate interesting questions, to how we understand the different realities and context around us. And as academics, as researchers, as scholars, the way in which we explain that through theory, remember that's what theory is. Theory is just a really smart, applicable, universal explanation for why something happens.
So if we're able to understand why something happens, we're able to go and do it somewhere else and hopefully apply that framework, that model, that theory in a different context. And here, as Rituparno and others are saying in the Q&A section, thank you for your contributions, Michael Porter is reflecting on his own work and reminding us that although we may be experts in certain areas of research, it's really our ability over our scholarship to look at something from different angles. and to combine perhaps some of the statistical work that we do, the statistical modeling, the quantitative work, combine that with a qualitative approach that really tries to understand. And the ability to go into an organization and look and talk and listen and analyze what's happening through a range of different methods, just quantitative, but including qualitative and observation kind of research, and pull together out of that a really clear, tight explanation and analysis of what that organization's doing and how they're doing it. That's what makes case research so useful.
And if we think about many of the models and theories that we take for granted, many of those were developed by having scholars just like us go into organizations. go into clusters, go into industries, go into other organizations and companies, and understand how do managers do what they do? How are decisions taken? How does business work?
So that's an important component, I think, of what makes case research so important. Case studies, discussion-based case studies, are then, of course, a great way to communicate those findings and communicate that research. What we know, if we look in the mirror and acknowledge to ourselves, is that so many of the papers that we write, as smart and great as they may be, don't really get read by that many people. And if we think about the kind of impact that we want to make as scholars, the kind of intellectual contribution we want to make, the way in which we want to shape and influence how practitioners do what they do, case studies really provide a larger reach. into the classroom, into the next generation of business leaders that are going through some kind of management program and the opportunity for them to learn about what we have learned and seen in these organizations.
Stories we know are extremely powerful. We are a species, a human race, love stories. We love telling stories. We love reading great stories. And so what discussion-based case studies allow us to do as a form of scholarship, as a type of scholarship, is take good, rigorous, in-depth case research where we deep dive into an organization and put that into a compelling, engaging story that learners want to read.
And then through the teaching and the facilitation of that story, a case class. We're able to make that story come alive, put students in the shoes of the decision maker, so that they themselves have to apply the theory or think about theory and frameworks in order to answer that specific challenge and then apply it to other situations. And so when we put all that together from the good quality case research into crafting it into a discussion based case, into teaching it in the classroom so that it comes alive and people are engaged and everybody wants to be part of the conversation.
That's really what discussion-based, participant-based case learning and writing and teaching is all about. And so we think that there's a really exciting opportunity here as we want to strengthen the management capabilities of students around the world, especially to allow them to understand how to operate in emerging markets, really the engine. of many of the economies around the world. So it's important wherever our students happen to be studying that they understand the context, they understand the decision-making issues, and they understand the processes involved in making decisions, in doing business, in the crazy, messy, difficult, and wonderful places that are emerging markets.
So I hope that is a useful introduction to our conversation today about the why. We think it's really important that we have a more complex... complete portfolio of intellectual contribution and that through case research we can really have a large-scale impact on many, many people around the world through our work and it's the combining of these different pieces.
We're going to talk a little bit about EMCS, Emerging Market Case Studies Collection. As you can see on the slide, a reminder here, we are Scopus ranked and that's really important in terms of the quality of the processes involved in how we run EMCS. and the kind of impact that the publication makes. 70,000 downloads on average per year for EMCS.
As many of you know, we are available through Emerald Insight in many of your libraries and institutions. And so those downloads, which are free to the students and free to the instructors in those libraries that subscribe, is just the tip of the iceberg. Because we know people are downloading and sharing and that's absolutely acceptable within the context of the database. And then as we talk about today, prizes and impact. We're very excited about the ability to invest in great case research and writing around the world.
And we'll be talking more about those opportunities as we go today. Thank you for some of the great comments that are coming through in the chat, comments about our conversation now and other questions that we will get to. So that's the kind of the introduction around why do a case.
I want to spend a little bit of time talking about what is a case. As I mentioned. We're talking about a discussion-based case study, some might refer to as a teaching case study.
So EMCS, there's the ISSN number, just so that you're clear about who we're talking about and what we're talking about. Really three drivers for us about what makes a case study. I'll talk a little bit later today about what makes a great case study, an award-winning case study, which is a few additional pieces too.
But the three main core components that we look at for every manuscript that is sent to us. for potential publication, for awards, for special issues, etc., are three things. One, on the left-hand top side of the slide, you can see there is an open unsolved dilemma.
So in the case narrative that we write in those eight or so pages of the case study, we're not including the answers. We're not including the analysis, right? That's part of the research project, and it's included in what's called the teaching note or the instructor manual.
But in the case narrative, in those eight pages, it's developed around a core dilemma, some kind of choice, decision, options that the protagonist, the decision maker, has to make. at that point in time. So in December 2022, Michael Goldman had to make a certain decision.
He had to choose between three equally vexing, difficult choices about how to invest the million dollars that he'd been allocated in his budget. There's a time, there's a place, there's a person, there are some choices. And so it's important that that... choice, that dilemma is core to the case.
What do I mean by that? I mean across the eight pages of the narrative, that choice, how to invest a million dollars in some kind of budget, that choice needs to come up over and over and be fleshed out and discussed and the different components and elements that relate to that decision need to be in those eight pages. What we want to be careful about, as you'll see later as well, is that we just top and entail the case with the decision.
So sometimes our colleagues want to write cases where they want to talk about a company and they think the company is great and they just want to write eight pages about the company. That's a great textbook chapter. That might be a great, you know, white paper about the company, but it's not a great teaching case.
Remember what makes a discussion or teaching case so powerful is that the students have to be in the position of the decision maker have to consider all that information and have to make a choice, have to make a decision. It's not just a history lesson. It's not just background and context.
It's not just a positive story about the company. It is an issue that the company is facing at that point in time. So that dilemma is critical to the case and it should be really developed. throughout the case.
So choices, options, importance, seriousness, all of those kinds of characteristics of the dilemma. So that's top left. Top right is around the protagonist. So there needs to be one, maybe two, maximum three, typically, protagonists, characters. Stories are about people.
They're about people's lives. They're about the choices and mistakes and successes that people have. It's about the interactions with people.
Those are the stories we as human beings love. So any case, good discussion-based case for a classroom needs to have at least one core protagonist. The person that students can identify with, can take the role of, can see themselves in. Remember, if you're a 22 or 32 or 42-year-old manager sitting in a classroom going through some kind of... business program or management or executive program, you're thinking about the next level.
You're thinking about that promotion or you're thinking about that business you want to start. The protagonists in our case studies provide examples of the kinds of people that many of our students want to be. And so we write the case study so that the student can see themselves in those roles and have to deal with the issues that that protagonist is facing. We want to hear the voice of the protagonist.
We want to see quotations from the protagonist. We want to understand a little bit more about who that person is. Can you describe that person in some way?
And of course, we want to make sure that there's both sourcing and consent. Consent is if we have primary data. If we interview the protagonist or the other characters, we get some of their words, we have some transcripts, we use those quotations.
That's the craft of writing the narrative. If we're doing that, if that is our source of information, we must have consent from that protagonist, from that company. But we can also write secondary source cases where we don't have access, perhaps, and we're not able to interview the protagonist. But cases still need to have the voice of the protagonist.
So where would you get that? You would get that from other secondary sources, from parliamentary or government testimony, from... good in-depth interviews that other people have had with the protagonist, from annual reports, from stock exchange filings, from media interviews.
We need the voice of the protagonist to come through in the case so that students can really identify with who that person is, how they think about this issue, so the student can put themselves in that situation. So that's the second component, the real character that we have. And of course, EMCS publishes cases about real people facing real organization, in real organizations, having to make real decisions.
It's all real content. We can disguise it, but we do not write fiction. This is nonfiction.
This is good research based on real data that we put together into these discussion-based cases. And then thirdly, it's about the emerging market context. So we are emerging market case studies.
We're very interested obviously in amplifying those stories from emerging markets. We think students all around the world need to make sure that they understand the billions of consumers and billions of employees that are operating in emerging markets, not just those developed economies in the world. And so we want to include some of that information where it's relevant in the case to the decision.
So I hope that's useful. Let me squeeze through here and see. if there are any specific questions.
Yeah, it looks like these are questions we can all address as we go a little bit later. Good, and yeah, Ritter Partners just asking a question here that I'll address now quickly about the primary audience. So yes, the audience for research articles is typically each other.
We write for each other, we write for other academics. And case studies have this wider reach, especially around students, managers, practitioners, et cetera. So here are a couple of examples of the kinds of difference of work that Ritopan is talking about.
On the left-hand side, you will see one of the articles I wrote way back in 2016 about some of my, I think, my doctoral work back in 2016 here. And so you'll recognize a typical approach to an article, to a manuscript, right? It's written in a very academic way.
It's got a whole bunch of academic references. The tone is very academic and scholarly. in the way that I've written it. It can still be interesting, I promise you. Research articles can be interesting.
But the tone, the style, the genre, the structure is quite specific. We know when we go through doctoral programs that we are taught to write in a certain way, certain sections, certain tones, styles, structure, format. We know that we learn that, many of us, in our doctoral programs.
Discussion-based cases... have a different style and structure and tone and format. Here on the right hand side, you can see one of the cases that is available on EMCS. It's our example case in the Cases Hub, which is a free online resource for everyone via the Emerald Publishing website. And this is one of the cases we have available here about Bright Rock, a life insurance company in mainly South Africa some years ago.
And here you can see a very different approach. So if you look at these two paragraphs, you can see that it's the same kind of information, but written in a different way. It tells a story. It puts the reader in a certain place at a certain time with a certain person having a certain issue.
And we're communicating that straight up at the top. When I start a case study, I'm not telling the long history of that organization. I'm not going back and saying, Bright Rock was established in 1999 when blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, no. When we switch on a great film or movie, when we open a great book, the reader takes us in immediately into the action.
And that's what we're trying to do with a discussion-based case. In that first paragraph, We want to be very clear about where we are, what the issue is, what the challenge facing that person and that organization is. And you can see here just in this one example how we try to do it. I hope you picked up some of these key components that you can see on the slide here. Where we are, when we are, who the protagonist is, what this business is, and then here in the second paragraph, some of what the challenge or dilemma.
facing this person is. This is critical. And when we look at cases submitted to EMCS, from an editorial point of view, from an associate editor point of view, and of course, our reviewers that are going to be looking at these cases, they're looking to make sure that this information is communicated upfront in that opening paragraph or two. Otherwise, the format and style and structure is not really appropriate. for a discussion-based case.
The content could be there in the case somewhere, but we want to bring it straight up to the front so that the reader is brought into that context immediately. Here's another example from another case on Kaya FM, a radio station in South Africa. Take a look at that one, right? Lifelong mission of the managing director, Greg Maloka. So we know who we are.
We have a sense of where we are. We know a little bit about the organization. And we can start to see what the dilemma is just in that first paragraph.
So I wanted to give you those examples. so that you get a sense of how do we start cases? What's the approach to bringing someone right in to the core issues, the dilemma, the protagonist, the context? Bring those in immediately and then flesh it out, develop it, have sections that go into greater depth about those components.
But we need to bring people in straight away. All right, let me see if there are, okay, no specific questions about that point. Of course, case studies have two pieces.
So when we talk about a case study, we're talking about the case study document and the teaching note, right? And case study document, as I mentioned, is typically about eight pages. It's signed off by the organization or the protagonist, especially if there's primary data, students read it, they analyze it, it's got the dilemma, et cetera, et cetera. So, and we'll talk a little bit more about some of those pieces. The teaching note is equally, if not more important, to the quality of an...
overall case study submission. The students never get to see it. The companies and protagonists typically don't see it.
It's written for instructors. And so it has some really critical components that make or break the quality of the case. The first one is about learning.
What will students learn through the case? And so we really think about learning outcomes and learning methodology. We'll spend a little bit of time talking about that.
Related to that is the teaching plan, not just a table that says section one or question one, 10 minutes, question two, 10 minutes, question three, 10 minutes. That's not a teaching plan, right? Teaching plan really goes into each one of those sections and talks about what would the instructor do in the room?
How would they facilitate that conversation? What kind of questions could they ask? What kind of follow up questions could they ask?
What kind of group work could they use? What kind of buzz groups or pairs in the room? What kind of activities could students be doing as part of investigating these questions?
Should students be doing some kind of presentation to each other or to the room? How does an instructor manage those 90 minutes? How do they think about all of those pieces?
A great case and a quality teaching note lays it out in a very clear... suggested structure for an instructor. Of course, the instructor can do whatever they want, right?
But our job is to make sure that someone can pick that case up on a Sunday night and spend a couple of hours preparing and walk in on a Monday morning and teach that case as an expert. That's the work we need to do in thinking about learning and thinking about teaching in the teaching note. So that's a really important section. And I mean we recognize that in many of our doctoral programs we are not taught how to teach We recognize that right as academics.
We know that this is something we kind of need to learn on the fly But there are some really good resources really good thinking around Bloom's taxonomy about andragogy or pedagogics There are some very useful resources many of our institutions have teaching and learning centers that I think we need to get much closer to So that we can bake it better not just at the craft of writing a case, but obviously the craft of teaching. And that comes into the teaching note, our ability to detail how this case could be taught in an effective, creative, engaging way. That's what sometimes separates great cases from fairly average cases, is where the authors, us, have done that work thinking about teaching in the teaching note. Of course, the other... substantial section of a teaching note is the assignment questions that flow out of the learning outcomes right you have the learning outcomes and you have the assignment questions that are related and then we have model answers to the assignment questions and this is where we put our academic hat on this is where we put our scholarship hat on and we make sure that when we answer those questions we answer them by leveraging by using by integrating recent and relevant literature, theory, and frameworks.
So if the question is, analyze, for example, here in the Bright Rock case, analyze the Bright Rock brand. Well, then you would expect to see an answer that really dives into brand and thinks about, for example, Kevin Lane Keller's consumer-based brand equity framework and paragraphs that really look at brand image and brand salience and brand resonance. And for my marketing people in the room, I hope you know what I'm talking about.
For the non-marketing people in the room, that was a little bit of brand 101. So the key frameworks that relate to that. question around branding or around segmentation or around whatever it might be, those are the frameworks that we need to see used in those answers. The way I like to think about it is, what is an A-plus kind of answer that you would expect in an exam, in a paper, or in a classroom conversation? What is a great answer?
And to what extent does that answer leverage or use good frameworks so that the student can demonstrate? that they are using the content they're learning, that they're using these frameworks and therefore can go out into the big wide world and use those frameworks too. So what's an A plus answer?
And how does that differ from maybe from a C kind of answer? So these are the ways we build in to the teaching note a real detailed focus on the application of theory. Just gonna, oh, there's my mouse.
Just gonna check if there's any additional questions here. Let's see. Explicit permission, yeah.
So there's a few questions here around permission. And happy to talk more about that a little bit later. But of course, consent permission is required if we have primary data.
If you interview the organization, if you use any of their documents, any of their words, any of the information that you get from the organization, the organization, from protagonists, from interviews, from executives, etc., you must get sign-off, you must get consent. The only time you do not need consent is if it is written purely from secondary sources. So if it's from public sources, from secondary sources, from library sources, from available sources on the internet, and it is not proprietary or not company-specific, so it's not from the company, That's the only time that you don't need consent. That includes if you gather primary data and it is disguised.
So you go and do interviews, you develop a great case, but there's something in the case study that the company does not want to have written that way. They may not want the numbers expressed in that way. They may not want certain product details included.
And so you can disguise that. You can find other names for it. You can disguise some of the numbers. You can change some of that information with the company's permission.
And you still need sign-off from that organization. So it's critical that you develop a relationship with the organization, that you say up front when you engage with the organization, this is how the process of the case study will work. And we will submit it to EMCS and it'll go under peer review.
And there may be some changes. And in order to publish that. we're going to need some consent because Emerald Publishing, like any publisher, will need to feel comfortable that what has been written is true and that the people who are quoted and the information that is quoted, that is from the organization, is the actual information.
And here's evidence that proves that it is. So that's good quality research. That's what rigorous review boards and ethical review boards are all about.
And so that's part of the process. So it's really critical that you develop that relationship, that you get that sign off, that you keep the organization in the loop the whole way through. This kind of case research is a partnership with the organization. Let's see, Mohammed has a question here that might be relevant to the specific slide. I'm gonna come back to your question, Mohammed, a little bit later.
Text citations. Yeah, everything needs to be referenced. The referencing approach in EMCS is we use a typical academic kind of referencing.
And so, you know, I know some publications use footnotes or endnotes or typical academic, excuse me, APA kind of referencing. Our approach is make sure it is all referenced. And then our post-acceptance team goes in and just polishes it up and makes sure that it's consistent.
So, you know, I think the easiest thing is to use something like APA as a referencing citation system, make sure everything is referenced, and then our post-acceptance team polishes that up to make sure it all looks consistent. So I hope that is helpful. All right, so that may, I think, were some questions specifically to those slides.
Let me end off here with some last thoughts on this last section here around how to do a case study. And we've touched on some of these already. I mentioned the learning hub, the cases hub that is available to you.
To, I think, Mayuk's point a little bit earlier about developing the relationship and getting sign-off. Where do you, how do you start, right? How do you start with potential case projects?
And some of these might come from a syllabus where you identify there's a gap. You want to teach something and you don't have a great case to teach that concept, to teach that theory, to explore that piece of content. And so that might lead you to go and develop a case.
Or on the right hand side, you see something interesting or you hear something interesting from an alumni, from a consulting assignment that you're working on, from executive education projects that you're working on. Or you read something in the newspaper or see something in the media that you think that's an interesting story. I'd love to work out what's going on there.
And then you make contact, you mine your alumni of the institution. That's a great way to get access, previous students, other alumni, or just cold calling and having a conversation with the protagonist and seeing if they're open to sharing the nuts and bolts of what happened back then, maybe a few months ago or a couple of years ago, and writing it up for educational purposes, right? Writing it up in a way that will help other managers around the world. deal with those kinds of issues.
And many protagonists, many decision makers see the benefit of sharing that and giving back, especially if you invite that person to the classroom when you teach the case and really allow them to engage with the students around those issues. Most executives are very open to that because of course we all have egos and they want their story told and as long as they're open to really digging into that story. that it's not just one-sided, it's not just totally positive, but all the issues involved are going to be raised.
And so that's typically how we go about developing that. Developing the case study, it's an iterative process. Here you can see some of the steps that you work on the case study.
You do some interviews. While you're doing that, you're thinking about learning outcomes. So we don't write the case and then we write the teaching note.
It's an iterative process where you're writing the one and the other at the same time and as you're moving between the two you're reinforcing and and and and strengthening different parts of each one so as you write the learning outcomes that will influence the kind of questions that you ask in the interview and as you're asking interview questions and you're hearing things from the protagonist or you're reading documents from the company or you're observing something at the company, that might lead you to think a little bit about different analysis that you might do in the teaching note. So the two documents really do connect. They have to connect in a very smart way, and we develop them iteratively at the same time. All right, here you can see the kind of data that you're going to be drawing on, a typical research method section that you see in the teaching note.
That's one of the components of a teaching note. And here on the right-hand side, I'm giving you an example of a case I wrote about Steph Curry and the NBA. And these were some of the sources, right?
It was about Brita, the water filter company, and their sponsorship of Steph Curry, who is a NBA basketball player. And so you can see my secondary sources here are a combination of media pieces, some research reports from Mintel, which will be accessible via your library, via your information centers. you're able to access some of these reports and as academics typically for almost no money. And then, of course, some other academic sources and interviews, etc.
So that gives you a sense, I hope, on the right hand side of the spread of secondary sources that get used, even though I did primary data as well. So I went and interviewed the people involved and I got a range of quotations and I put that voice into the case. But I also backed it up with secondary sources.
And so you want to have that combination. of primary data and secondary data. Primary data where you can get it, right? And I recognize that we're not able to always get it, in which case we're relying much more on secondary source data. I mentioned learning outcomes earlier.
Here's an example of Bloom's taxonomy. I like this example because it talks about both the knowledge and the cognitive process dimension. Again, if you're less familiar with learning theory, with how adults and how young people learn, this may be an area you want to deep dive into a little bit more. Learning outcomes that really work in a case are well designed. They have a combination of balance between some more...
basic learning outcomes as well as more complex learning outcomes. The learning outcomes need to be aligned with the target audience of the case. So an undergraduate first-year marketing or finance case will have a different level of complexity to perhaps a final year or a master's level MBA type case study, which will have a different feel. to an executive education kind of case study that might be shorter and sharper and more focused on executive decisions. So we want to be clear when we write the case and the teaching note, who is this case most useful for?
Not exclusively, but most useful for. And then we need to develop the learning outcomes that are then right for that kind of student in that kind of classroom. Now, we know that we all teach in different institutions, different countries, different systems.
So there isn't a one size fits all. But please engage with that question and make sure that there's some kind of logic in your teaching note that shows the target audience and how that relates to the learning outcomes and that the learning outcomes are appropriate for that target audience. That's an important piece of consistency.
Here's an example, again, from that. this is the Bright Rock case study and so an example here of the learning objectives or teaching objectives you can see here at the end of the case discussion successful students will be able to do what they'll be able to critique the development of a brand they'll be able to integrate a whole bunch of paid owned and earned media they'll be able to critique a content marketing strategy so you can see if we go back here to the Bloom's taxonomy you We're kind of really up here around evaluating and analyzing. The Brightrock case was not written for an entry-level undergraduate marketing 101. It really was written for a more senior kind of class or a more complex decision making. And so everything flows from that decision that we make as authors.
And then you can see how the questions relate to the learning outcomes, that there's a logical, consistent flow between the one and the other. All right. I think I'm heading to the end of my time here, so I think this is my last slide. Melissa's going to announce some competitions which we're really excited about.
And so just a few comments here about what we see in great competition entries versus some of the things that trip up some case competition entries. The four things I would encourage you to think about. If you wanted to write a case, not just for the collection, but to win an award in some of these competitions, there are four things that really separate.
One is the extent to which that dilemma is core to the case. Everything in the case is about that dilemma, that choice, that decision that needs to be made. Make sure that that is early on as a hook and throughout the case. That's a really important criteria. Two is the storytelling voice and the research depth in the case.
the number of second resources, the backup to everything you're saying, the voice of the protagonist coming in, the quality of the quotations, that we really, when we read it, we are taken into that situation. And of course, the research in the teaching note as well. Application of recent and relevant theory in the teaching note, that you're not just relying on something from 25 years ago. You're not just relying on a textbook chapter.
You are engaging with the... current theory base, the current knowledge base in that area and you're applying it and integrating it into smart model answers to those assignment questions. And then I mentioned the teaching plan that we really are developing an almost a minute by minute kind of way of thinking about that teaching plan.
So we really are helping instructors. Those are the four criteria typically that determine an award-winning case. Be careful of the following four things. Number one, writing a case that is too long, too boring, that doesn't really have any choices.
If you fall in love with a company and you just want to write something about the company, that's great, but it doesn't sound like a great discussion-based case. A teaching note that is weak or short or an afterthought. Make sure that it is an equal document and sometimes even a more important document than the case study. Make sure that there's something new that comes through in the case. We're always thinking about novel, right, in our research.
And so I'm interested in what are some of those theories and models that are being applied in the teaching note. Again, are we just relying on the things that we taught over the last 10, 20, 30 years? Some of that is relevant.
But where's some of the new thinking? Where are some of the new references in our teaching note of, you know, the latest Harvard Business Review articles, the latest Journal of Marketing articles, the latest financial management articles? How are we making sure that we're drawing on the latest knowledge base into our teaching notes? And then when you do go through the review process, make sure that you look at our response to reviewers document.
This is a critical component of engaging back and forth with the editorial team. and with the reviewers so that you address every single issue that is raised. So with that, let me go back here.
I think that that's, here we go. I think that that has stopped my sharing. And so I hope that's useful as a bit of a starter here.
I know there's some questions. I'll take a look and hand over to Melissa. Thank you.
I'm just going to share my screen. Bear with me for one moment. Okay, hopefully you can see that now and someone will shout if you cannot. So I'm just going to talk briefly through a couple of resources that Emerald has available and then highlight those upcoming publication opportunities for you to potentially submit your case to one of our annual competitions.
So this has been mentioned a couple of times throughout Michael's presentation, but. The Cases Learning Hub is a great resource for after you step away from this webinar, which is really great to cover the overview of case writing, get you motivated and thinking about different things you could tackle in a case study. The Cases Hub is a great next step to help you follow through on all of the thoughts or work you've started today. It is a completely free online resource with a case writing module that's going to take you from end to end of, you know. figuring out what you want to write about, setting those objectives, and then going through all the way to the end of evaluating your case study and getting it ready for publication.
And as you go through this writing module, you'll find videos from our editors-in-chief, you'll find helpful infographics, and just a handful of resources that go up a little bit deeper in your own time into how you can kind of check off the list of what is required in a quality teaching case. Also available on the CASES Learning Hub are a couple of other modules such as Teaching with a Case Study. This is designed to help faculty become a bit more confident in facilitating cases in their own classrooms.
So you could use that if you're new to it or if you're just looking to refresh yourself. We also have a Learning with Case Studies course which you could assign to your students alongside any case that you are using in your classroom. So this really just helps them do their due diligence and their homework and preparing for this class session. It kind of guides them through the various elements that they would need to identify in the case. And then at the end, there's a handful of, you know, question and answer sections to this module where they could export all of the work they've done in here to prepare for the classroom discussion and then bring that to class as a PDF to ensure that the discussion you're able to have together is checking all of the boxes you're looking to head.
And then finally, there is a useful resources section on the hub as well. And I saw someone asking in the chat about sample cases. This is exactly where you would find a sample case from EMCS and our other collections as well.
So you would just go to the useful resources section, look at those sample cases. And we also have a handful of past webinars and writing guides as well to help you through this process. On the note of guides and guidelines, this page is pretty much just a.
quick link to the ones we have readily available on our website. And again, these slides are available in the handout section on your screen. So if you just navigate there, you can download these slides and then keep these links readily available for you as you're working on your case studies. Wherever you decide to submit to, we encourage you to read through the author guidelines in full. This just helps you ensure that you're hitting all of those requirements and we don't need to come back and forth with you over those missing elements and take up your time.
that way. Another resource we have is the Compact Guide to Compact Cases. This is a book which was written by one of our editors, Rebecca Morris.
So the compact case format is a specific kind of case where it's between 1,000 and 3,000 words. So it's very short. It's designed to be read in about 10 to 15 minutes so you could potentially have your students read the case at the start of class and then move straight into discussion from there. So with compact case writing. They are accepted in all of our collections and this is just going to show you kind of the nuances to doing this format successfully.
So it has annotated examples, checklists, roadmaps, and writing prompts to kind of help you change up what you might do in a typical 5,000 to 7,000 word case and do it successfully in a shorter format. And then Just a brief overview of a couple of our outlets. So EMCS, of course, is Michael Goldman is our editor in chief. He's been talking about this a little bit during his presentation. But this focuses specifically on real world challenges with a slant of emerging markets focus.
So everything we do in EMCS is fully double blinds peer reviewed. That's kind of meant to help show showcase those unique perspectives of emerging markets. And submissions can be across all business and management disciplines. We are Scopus indexed, as he mentioned, which I think really speaks towards the quality of our review process and our publications.
And we are open to submissions year round. And that is just a link to more information on EMCS. The case journal is our other collection.
This one does not have that specific emerging markets focus. So I would say if you're working in emerging markets context, probably go to EMCS, but TCJ. does not have that so you can go to TCJ for other cases as well and they have very similar kind of scope in that they cover all all disciplines in business and management and they accept those long-form case studies and compact cases in addition to articles and they are also Scopus indexed so I mentioned that we have a couple of competitions that we're launching for next year these are kind of annual events at Emeralds that have a prize fund associated with them and unique aims and scopes where if your case is aligned to one of the missions for one of these competitions it would be a really great opportunity for you to be considered for this award. So the first one is the Case for Women. This is sponsored by the Case for Women organization, the Forte Foundation and the A Roundtable and this is meant to promote the development of high quality teaching cases with female protagonists.
So you're showing women in real leadership positions in the workplace dealing with real problems. And our submission requirements for this one is that that protagonist is described in a positive way and they're speaking to another woman about the business. We're really, really big on making sure that these are positive additions to the diversity of our case collections.
And you are able to see the full requirements on the link at the top of this screen. Another competition we're really excited about is the Emerald Seaman Case Writing Competition. So this is published in EMCS. It's something we do every year with our partner, the International Association for Management Development and Dynamic Societies. So this has to have a developing and emerging markets focus in order to be considered.
It has to be based on a real situation and a real company. And it must be a teaching case. We cannot accept academic research cases.
So if you are Listening to Michael's presentation earlier, if you follow all of his recommendations, you'll probably be good. And it has to follow all EMCS author guidelines. So the deadline for this one is April 30th. The total prize fund is 4000 euros and it's open around the world as long as it's got that emerging markets focus.
And finally, the last competition we are looking to launch today is the Indigenous Voices Case Competition. So similar to the case for women. We noticed that there was not really a home or much representation for Indigenous voices within the Emerald Case Collection.
So this one is meant to highlight their stories and provide a unique perspective that is currently lacking in case literature. So submissions from all regions are encouraged. They must feature an Indigenous protagonist and have at least one Indigenous member on its author team. And they'll be judged by a panel of case experts and Indigenous scholars. So I hope one of those...
piqued your interest and you're looking forward to submitting to a competition next year. If you have any questions about their various scopes and their submission deadlines, feel free to reach out to me afterwards or use one of those links in the slides that is in the handout section. So right now, I believe we're going to do a brief poll to help get some feedback on how useful you found this session. So my colleague, Sarah, should be starting a question in the chat. Let me see if I can see it.
OK, so it looks like a poll is open. I heard someone speaking. So I'm going to give you about 30 seconds to answer this first question. I can see the responses pouring in. It's very helpful for us at Emerald to get this direct feedback from participants in these webinars.
And if you ever want to add any context to your answers, feel free to just send me an email. Okay, it looks like responses are slowing down. So just a couple more seconds on this one and then we can move to the second question. There are three questions in total. So I'm going to say that's a pretty good response for this first question.
I'm just going to check the questions panel as well while that's happening. Okay, Sarah can we move to the next question? Yes, that one.
I'm going to stop sharing. Okay, there we go. Thank you. Okay, I think that's pretty good. Is there one last question?
Yeah, I'll just. Okay, thank you. Okay, I think that was enough time and it looks like the majority of people answered our little poll.
So thank you for providing that direct feedback and if we have any time left for questions we can take another look at those. We've got one minute it looks like. So do a quick scan. I think I've answered all the ones I see of the questions.
But if my quick answer, as I'm typing here in the background, was not substantial enough, please, anyone's welcome to email us and follow up on the conversation. There was a question there a little bit about impact and citations of cases. And, of course, the issue there is that we talk about downloads. We talk about usage.
And, you know, EMCS pays a upfront royalty. which may be useful to some authors, but it's really about, I think, this kind of work we're doing. It's about how many people are using our cases in how many interesting places, and we can provide some of that data, and many authors are getting that information from other instructors that are using their cases anyway.
That's the kind of narrative that instructors find extremely useful in promotion and tenure and job applications, is talking about the impact of their work. It's not just... Here are my citations from my published research articles of how many people perhaps maybe sometimes referenced my work in some of their work, but it's here are all the classrooms and students and managers who are actually using my research in classrooms to do what they do better. And we find that those are very compelling ways of talking about the impact and the wider reach of our work.
So happy to talk to anyone about the ways in which many of our colleagues, many of our authors are doing that. Okay, thank you. And I think we are now one minute over, so we can probably draw things to a close. Thank you again to all of the attendees for spending your time with us. I hope you found this helpful and very motivating to go off and write your case.
And just to reiterate, our inboxes are open. If you want to follow up with anything or ask us a question, you can reach out to us for that. So I believe we can end the recording now and go about our days and see you next time.
Thank you very much.