The Future of Business Schools in a Multi-Polar World

Professor Thomas Durand is Director of the Department of Management and Innovation at Le Cnam, Paris and a proponent of the view that business schools suffer from an over-reliance on research publication in peer-reviewed journals as an indicator of institutional and faculty quality.

His argument is that the competition between business schools supports quality indicators including rankings, accreditation processes and journal rankings that over-emphasise research publication at the expense of other equally or more valuable activities including teaching, non-research publications, case studies and so on.

Thomas calls for European business schools to make a co-ordinated attempt to counter this at a regional level by acting together to promote the impact of teaching, case writing and other forms of publication as valid expressions of quality.

This argument is one with which we are all familiar and which we support. I speak often with case authors who feel overlooked and undervalued in comparison with colleagues publishing in starred journals. Yet we know from our work in case distribution that a case may be repeatedly adopted by many schools worldwide. Isn't this a form of peer review? What better mark of quality can there be than a decision to select a case around which to build a course?

We have a huge amount of data showing the uptake and continuing use of cases around the world and would be happy to help any author seeking evidence of their impact on global teaching and executive education.

The history of case studies in the UK

Len Rogers has been in touch to say that it is almost 50 years since he was one of the pioneers of the use of the business case study in the UK when chief examiner to the Institute of Marketing. This is his story.

I'm publishing it in Len's own words to encourage other case users with stories to tell to get in touch. I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Len writes:

The ‘open book’ examination was introduced for the final diploma exam and Ted Jenner and I used to meet twice a year in the Charing Cross Hotel, to select a Harvard Business School case study which was circulated to examinees one month before the examination.

To counter the inevitable action of examinees seeking professional help, I prepared an examination paper that progressed the case for a further month or so providing additional quantitative and qualitative data – extended or contracted operations, increased or decreased sales, reductions or additions in staff, once, even the receipt of a hostile bid. The examination paper did not negate the work that candidates had done on the case during the month but it meant that a pre-prepared analysis needed considerable modification in the light of the new information received in the examination room. It was highly successful and I prepared two cases a year for the next eleven years.

I resurrected the first of those cases used in September 1969 -- Medway Appliances Ltd – and think that others might be interested to receive it. Some of the problems we had in the 60s are still relevant today; others have changed out of all recognition.

I'm now working on transposing Owen & Davies, the case I wrote for the 1972 September exam, which concerns two executives meeting in the Crown Hotel, Bangor North Wales, both recently having been made redundant. One is an electrical engineer and the other with an honours degree in chemistry from Nottingham. They each have an idea of starting on their own and over drinks explain their proposals – one to market an electronic organ and the other to distribute Canadian fruit juice concentrates.

When each has finished, they prefer the proposal of the other and decide to call on the services of a marketing consultant – the examinee. Len remembers chucking a few rocks in the pool to muddy the water with some updated information in the examination room but the case was highly successful and case studiers learned a little more about contemporary problems of starting a business from scratch. Here again, the case history is a very useful medium because the crucial element in all case studies is the environment. A case history is a case study but a case study is not necessarily a case history―its environment conditions its analysis and synthesis.

If you would like a copy of Len's Owen & Davies case, drop me a line.

HeadbanginteethshakinHeavyMetal Management

My friend, jazz guitarist Charles Alexander recently sang the praises of tour managers who work with the various heavy metal bands like Iron maiden and Judas Priest he occasionally bumps into at airports around the world. Touring is tough and Charles had a great deal of respect for the stamina and resilience of the bands themselves but he was was particularly complimentary about the logistical skills of their tour managers.
It seems he may be on to something, for now, hot on the heels of that conversation, comes news of a book that claims to show how heavy metal can rescue your business.  Par Jorgen Parson and Hans-Olov Oberg, a couple of Swedes with a shared love of business and high-octane heavy metal have written a book combining their business experience with a love of heavy metal to create,... well, look, just read about it here back in black

Of course ecch also has a love of music and carries a range of cases with musical themes.  Professor Maury Peiperl tackled conducting an orchestra to discover how to lead a group of professionals who know more than you do  while as for Lady Gaga .....

On being the subject of a case study

We often talk about how authors benefit from the experience and research opportunities that come from  writing a case.  And later students benefit in the classroom.  But what about the people who are the subjects of a case study?  How do they feel? I can guess at the possible impact and disruption but might they also benefit?

Kanika Gupta of the SoJo Blog writes very positively about the experience first of being interviewed as the case is written and then of being present as the case is taught. Kanika enjoyed it so much she can't wait for the B case!

Kanika's blog supports what we found when interviewing for our own feature on cases in companies. Seems the case method brings benefit to everyone in a virtuous circle enclosing authors, subjects, teachers, students and researchers.

What do you think? Have you experience you would like to share?

Using video in the business classroom

I'm a trustee of the British Universities Film and Video Council BUFVC promotes the production, study and use of moving images and sound and related media in higher education and research.  We combined our December AGM with an information event. Get Creative - raising awareness of moving image & sound content in your institution was packed with excellent presentations from librarians, media resource staff and academics.  All enthusiastic, knowledgeable and committed people, sharing their real experience of the impact of resources on improving learning for students. Of all the presentations, one in particular by Linda Irish and Hilary Pooley of the University of Manchester caught my attention as it used a recorded clip of a business academic talking about how she used the Simpsons episode Visit to Itchy and Scratchy Land to teach 'pester power'. Dr Anna Goatman of Manchester University Business School is the academic interviewed and I contacted her to find out more.

Anna uses some short cases or vignettes in her teaching, around a couple of pages long, but it's her use of video that she finds particularly exciting and given the interest in using video and other media in case teaching I thought it would be interesting to share Anna's thoughts:

"I have used a number of different television programmes to support 'case style' teaching.  For example, I've used a couple of Alex Reily's programmes (Britain's Really Disgusting Foods and Secrets of the Superbrands) as the basis for discussions on marketing ethics and new product development.  I've also used programmes such as I'm running Sainsbury's, Mary Queen of Shops, Inside John Lewis, Business Nightmares, The British at Work,  Made in Britain, The Tube and Coppers as the basis for seminar and workshop discussions and tasks (as well as for examples in lectures).

I have found that often the advantage of video over written material is that students can watch the footage together in the room at the same time and then have a discussion or undertake a task.  It seems to bring things to life more than a written case alone, and for undergraduate students who often have little or no work experience, it can help them understand the context more easily.  I have also found that the quality of material from national broadcasters tends to be far higher than material made specifically for educational purposes, and this does seem to matter to the students.

There are also times when I have tried to combine a short written case with video material.  For example, I teach a final year elective on Services Marketing and part of the course looks at public sector services, so students have a short written case to look at how service quality is measured in public sector services, but I have combined this with material from other sources such videos from BBC news programmes, and even comedy clips from programmes such as 10 o'clock live which often has a different perspective on current affairs.  Sometimes this material is all provided to students in a lecture or seminar environment, but I have also used the VLE to provide additional material, or if I have used a video clip in a lecture or seminar, I may make the whole programme available to students online, so they can revisit it and gain a deeper understanding."

All of the off-air recordings that Anna uses are available to UK educational institutions under an initiative called Box of Broadcasts.  BoB is a fantastic resource for UK teachers, making it simple and cheap to access the entire recorded output of all UK broadcasters for use in the classroom.  Follow the link to get full details.

I have two questions.  Firstly, given how easy it is to use this resource and the benefits it brings to teaching, why are media resources not used more often?   Secondly, for copyright reasons the service is able to operate only within the UK - are similar services available elsewhere?

Technology, innovation and how to avoid snake oil

 The deadline for submitting entries to our award for Innovation in Case Teaching is approaching fast and I know that many of the entries will focus on the adoption of new technologies.  There is no doubting that technology has the potential to transform education for the better when it is combined with effective teaching practices and many schools are dedicating considerable time and resources to the question of how best to respond to the opportunities it offers. 

So here are a couple of articles you may be interested in reading.  

The first is Decoding Learning a new report from Nesta - the UK's innovation foundation.  Nesta argues that too often technologies have been imported into classrooms without the necessary changes to teacher practice and school organisation to support them.   



From tablets to voting pods, whiteboards and games, individual technologies have been sold to schools in the promise of enhanced learning but with no real understanding of how to use them or their potential benefits. Millions of pounds is being spent on shiny new equipment that is only ever toyed before being left to gather dust in school cupboards with almost zero impact on student learning.



Geoff Mulgan, chief executive of Nesta, says "A tablet replacing an exercise book is not innovation - it's just a different way to make notes."  

Education technology should be designed around how students learn. Technology used to support existing teaching practices, rather than transforming teaching and learning, is an opportunity wasted.

  

So what strengths of digital education should teachers build on? 

Nesta identifies five: assessment tools; learning through making; techniques for practising; taking learning outside the classroom and social learning.  

The report demands evidence of what things work and calls for a move from 'plug and play' to 'think and link' - where tools are used with lots of other types of resources.

Another useful contribution to the debate can be found in the December edition of the Journal of Management Education  An Examination of the Effectiveness of Case Method teaching Online: Does the Technology Matter?  by Sharon Watson and Jann Marie Sutton

Watson and Sutton examine the effectiveness of the case method when teaching online and how it is affected by the choice of technology,  and particularly on how the decision to use either synchronous or asynchronous communication affects student learning and satisfaction. 

Their findings suggest that engagement and interaction with the instructor and fellow students is what most determines student satisfaction and perceived learning in online courses.

Both papers suggest that the best way to take full advantage of technology is to start by really understanding the characteristics of each technology and medium and asking how best to use them to deliver learning objectives.  Each technology, each medium, each approach will be stronger or weaker in one area or another.  Let's avoid being dazzled by technological bling.

I'm looking forward to reading those Innovation in Case Teaching Submissions. 

Is the case method passé?

Is the MBA Case Method Passé? asks the the current edition of Forbes.

The question is a good one and deserves more than the case proponent's (my) insolent defence that any identifiable weakness in the case method is actually, were the critic only insightful enough to realise, a strength.  Thus, judo-like, we overcome our opponents by using their own strength to unbalance them.

The pressure of too many cases results in naive and superficial analysis?  It's how the world works.  We all take decisions based on too little time and understanding.   


The data used for case analysis are limited to what is supplied? So? We're talking exercising technique and classic management skills here.  The facts may change but the fundamentals go on for ever.  We're not actually running the company, you know, it's a classroom. 


There is no 'right' answer.  Ain't that the truth.  
 

And so on until either the opponent or the defender grows to weary or bored to continue the argument, leaving the dojo, honour intact, to fight another day.

But I want to raise not a defence but a variation on the theme raised by Ronald Yeaple in the Forbes article.  Which is that the alternatives he proposes and illustrates in his own teaching practice are themselves developments, improvements, improvisations on the theme of the case method.  That what he is proposing is not that the case method is passé but that the prescriptive approach to how the method is captured and expressed (it must be written like this, taught like this, and so on) constrains innovation and restricts the full expression of its strengths in an age of universal, portable access to digital information and communication.

The question is, what do we talk about when we talk about cases?  Is the classic case format the only possible expression of the ideal?  If we don't draw a distinction between the method itself (the approach, the pedagogy) and the means by which the ideal is captured and expressed (the written case, the physical classroom) then I think there is a real threat that the method will become more easily dismissible by students coming to it for the first time, "- leaving them wondering what are the takeaways from the exercise."    

This is something that concerns us at ecch, which is why we've added to our Awards this year a competitive category recognising innovation in case teaching

I'm looking forward to writing another blog about how much innovative case teaching we've been able to uncover and share as a result.