Covid-19 Looms Large At The Case Centre’s 32nd Annual Awards

Nuno Fernandes, professor of finance at IESE Business, won the Outstating Case Teacher Award at Case Centre’s 32nd Awards and Competitions.

Nuno Fernandes, professor of finance at IESE, won the Outstanding Case Teacher Award at the Case Centre’s 32nd Awards and Competitions.

As companies and economies continue to adapt to the new realities brought on by the Coronavirus, one thing to be said of the pandemic: It makes for rich source material for business case studies.

Cases examining the pandemic’s effects on different companies won two of the top prizes at the Case Centre’s 32nd Awards and Competitions this year. The Overall Winning Case award went to “adidas: How to Keep Running Fast in a Post-COVID-19 World?” by Niccolò Pisani of IMD Business School in Switzerland and Ornella Lupoi of the University of Amsterdam. The Outstanding Case Writer: Hot Topic award went to “Zoom Video Communications: Flash in the Pandemic or Enduring Success?” an Ivey Publishing case by Malay Krishna and Gursimran Gambhir of the S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research.

The annual awards honors cases in 10 management disciplines along with an Overall Award, highlighting excellence in case writing and teaching at global schools of business, management and government. It also awards honors in six competitions.

FIRST-TIME WINNERS DOMINATE

Richard McCracken. Courtesy photo

“The 2022 Awards and Competitions highlight individual and school successes through one of the most disrupted times they have ever faced, providing a unique insight into what was being taught to business and management students – often, this year, online or in hybrid classes. They also reflect the focus of case authors as they navigated a path through unprecedented pedagogical challenges, keeping research and education going,” Richard McCracken, director of The Case Centre, says in a release.

“A new generation of brilliant business and management graduates will be required to help economies and businesses across the world to regroup and thrive after the pandemic. These Awards and Competitions, with winners from Asia, Europe and North America, shine a light on where and by whom some of this expertise is being nurtured – often by new talent.”

Twenty-five individual case writers won an award or competition for the first time, down slightly from last year when 30 individual winners took home a prize. All six competition prizes went to first-time winners.

Similarly, seven schools won an award or competition for the first time: University of Amsterdam; Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University; Case Research Foundation; ETH Zurich; Lee Business School, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; S.P. Jain Institute of Management and
Research (SPJIMR); and the University of Winnipeg.

Below is a breakout of Case Centre’s major award winners and some breakout cases find the full list of winners and case descriptions here.

MAJOR AWARDS

Overall Winning Case: adidas: How to Keep Running Fast in a Post-COVID-19 World?
Niccolò Pisani, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)
Ornella Lupoi, University of Amsterdam

Niccolò Pisani and Ornella Lupoi

Niccolò Pisani and Ornella Lupoi

This case examines how COVID-19 affects growth at athletic shoe giant, adidas. Between 2016 and 2019, the company focused on digitalization strategy to engage in novel ways with its customers, pushing the company through a period of sustained growth. But, in April 2020, the pandemic hit its brick-and-mortar sales and customers migrated online. Was the company’s previous digital efforts enough to buffer the effects of Coronavirus?

“This means a lot to me. It feels very rewarding knowing that so many colleagues have found our case valuable for their own teaching and students from all the world have used our case in their learning journeys,” Pisani says.

This is the first Case Award for the authors, and the 41st award for IMD–including five overall case awards in 1993, 1995, 2002, and 2014. IMD also won the overall award this year.

Outstanding Case Writer: Hot Topic ‘Responding to shocks’: Zoom Video Communications: Flash in the Pandemic or Enduring Success?
An Ivey Publishing case by Malay Krishna and Gursimran Gambhir, S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR)

Since the start of the pandemic, almost everyone have used Zoom in one way or another. Now that competitors are trying to capture some of its market share, this case examines how Zoom will fare when and if workers return to the office.
“I think the case has proved popular because our focal company in the case – Zoom – is such a household name, and it’s not an open-and-shut case: students enjoy debating how Zoom might evolve,” Malay says.

Outstanding Contribution to the Case Method: Anne T Lawrence, Case Research Foundation

Anne Lawrence

Anne Lawrence

Lawrence is the Case Research Foundation founder board chairwoman and is professor emerita at Lucas College and Graduate School of Business at San Jose State University. She published more than 30 quality cases that have impacted graduate education around the world, Case Centre writes in its release. She has won the Curtis E Tate Award for Outstanding Case of the Year in 1998, 2009 and 2015. Other writing awards include winning the AOM Dark Side Case Competition in 2007, the Emerson Award in 2003 for Outstanding Case in Business Ethics, and the Philip D Cooper Award in 1999 for Outstanding Case in Health Care.

“I have been fascinated by cases since childhood. My father, Paul R Lawrence, was a case teacher and writer at Harvard Business School. When I was growing up, the routine in my family was that my mother would cook dinner and my father would clean up. I liked to sit on a tall stool by the kitchen sink after dinner and listen to my dad tell stories. Only much later did I realize that his stories were often just simplified versions of cases he was writing or teaching,” Lawrence says.

Outstanding Case Teacher: Nuno Fernandes, IESE Business School

Fernandes is a professor of finance at IESE Business School as well as chairman of the Board of Auditors of the Portuguese Central Bank, member of the audit committee at the European Investment Bank, and a research associate of the European Corporate Governance Institute.

“A passionate case writer and teacher, Nuno is an advocate of mixing traditional cases with other pedagogical tools, including multimedia elements, role-plays, experiments, or simulations,” Case Centre writes in its press release.

Fernandes was nominated by students and selected by a panel of Case Centre judges.

“I am fortunate to have spent most of my professional career in institutions with great teachers, from whom I learn every day, and that I am extremely thankful for. I am also thankful to all my co-authors, current and past colleagues and mentors, and above all, my students, from whom I learn every day,” he says.

Fernandes is a first-time winner, while IESE is a previous three-time winner of a management
category Award.

NEXT PAGE: More major award descriptions + A complete list of the 2022 Case Centre Awards winners

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