August 31, 2018. Shanghai – The kick-off meeting of the ChinaCases.Org Editorial Board for Management Disciplines (hereinafter referred to as "Editorial Board") was convened on the CEIBS Shanghai Campus on August 31, 2018.

Commissioned by the Shanghai Municipal Government in 2013, the CEIBS Case Center established the Global Platform of China Cases (ChinaCases.Org) in collaboration with member schools of the Shanghai MBA Case Development and Sharing Platform and Tsinghua SEM. Focused on China and benchmarking against international standards, ChinaCases.Org aims to facilitate the application of the case method in China's management education and training. The Editorial Board is composed of seven experts from six institutions. CEIBS Prof. Chen Shimin, Director of the CEIBS Case Center, serves as Editor-in-Chief; editors include Prof. WANG Junqiu from East China University of Science and Technology, Associate Prof. LI Zhen from East China Normal University, Prof. XU Hui from Nankai University, Assistant Prof. CHEN Hao from Tsinghua University, Associate Prof. LAO Guoling from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Associate Prof. Shameen Prashantham from CEIBS. These editors, serving primarily as blind reviewers for ChinaCases.Org in previous years, will work on an invitation-only basis for a three-year term.

Prof. Chen Shimin delivered a welcome address and chaired the meeting. He first gave an overview of the Global Contest for the Best China-Focused Cases (hereinafter referred to as “Case Contest”) over the past two years to give editors a fuller picture of how the contest was organized and coordinated, including the case submission process, the review and judging process, the award selection process, and the publishing process by ChinaCases.Org.

He then defined the roles and responsibilities of the editors. Based on the evaluation process of the contest from 2015 to 2017, the Case Center decided to establish an editorial board for the disciplines of finance and accounting, strategy and general management, marketing, HR management and organizational behavior, operations, and others, with an aim of improving case evaluation. One of the editors’ main duties is to offer a clear opinion on cases after taking into consideration the comments by blind reviewers and to help case authors modify their cases to meet the entrance criteria of the Shanghai MBA Case Library. In short, the editorial board will replace the group review in the third evaluation phase, following an initial review and a blind review, in order to finalize accepted cases. In addition, editors will offer suggestions on the contest design, evaluation system, and platform development, and serve as judges for the Nominated Case Award of the Case Contest held annually.

After that, editors conducted a trial evaluation of three controversial cases chosen for the meeting and presented their views after considering the comments of two blind reviewers. The Editorial Board engaged in lively discussion about the review results of these three cases. With respect to case evaluation criteria, the editors conducted a careful analysis to optimize the existing evaluation guidelines and reconcile them with past practices. They also put forward constructive suggestions regarding the requirements for case submission and the judging criteria of Nominated Case Award selections for this year's Case Contest.

The initial meeting of the Editorial Board will provide valuable guidance on the future of case submission, the review process, the award selection process, and the publishing process by ChinaCases.Org. The overall design and case evaluation process of the 2018 Case Contest will continue to be refined and improved, ensuring ChinaCases.Org will grow as a top library of high-quality teaching cases for management issues in China.