July 1-2, 2019. Shanghai – The first batch of the 2019 CEIBS Case Master Development Camp was held at CEIBS’ Shanghai campus on July 1-2, with two classes running in Chinese and English respectively. More than 140 faculty members from 98 schools and universities in China (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), the US, Canada, the UK, Italy, Hungary, India, Malaysia and Singapore participated in the event.

CEIBS Case Center Director Professor Chen Shimin opened the workshop with a welcome speech, during which he introduced some of the major functions of the CEIBS Case Center (“the Center”) and the development background of the Case Master Development Camp (“the Camp”). As Prof. Chen put it, the Center has played an important role in supporting CEIBS’ case development efforts. Commissioned by the Shanghai Municipal Government and Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, the Center has collaborated with 13 business schools in Shanghai to establish the Shanghai MBA Case Development and Sharing Platform and promote the Global Platform of China Cases (ChinaCases.Org). The Center is also committed to promoting the development and teaching of China-focused cases through the Camp, and to collecting excellent China-focused business management teaching cases from all over the world through the Global Contest for the Best China-Focused Cases (“the Contest”). The Camp is held twice a year to promote communication about case teaching, to facilitate a wider adoption of the case teaching method and to boost the development of more China-focused cases. In his address, Prof. Chen expressed his hope that the Camp would continue to provide a sharing platform to inspire the enthusiasm of university faculty to develop China-focused cases, to better understand the Global Platform of China Cases, to actively participate in the Contest and to deliver more high-quality teaching cases about management issues in China.

CEIBS Case Center Director Professor Chen Shimin gives his welcome address

Over the course of the two-day event, CEIBS faculty members, including Prof. Lin Chen, Prof. Byron Y. Lee, Prof. Liang Neng, Prof. Zhang Hua, Prof. Hyun Young Park and Prof. S. Ramakrishna Velamuri, shared their wealth of experience about how to teach and develop cases in around areas such as marketing, human resources and organisational behaviour, entrepreneurship, and corporate finance. They also elaborated on case teaching theories and methodologies, and addressed questions from participants in an interactive manner.

Prof. Lin Chen impressed the Chinese class with a case entitled "FamilyMart: 'Internet Plus' Strategy". The case won the Best Case Award of 2016 Contest and has been one of the most downloaded cases from ChinaCases.Org to date. Prof. Lin introduced the development history of FamilyMart in a humorous tone while tossing out a string of case questions, such as "Should FamilyMart explore online businesses?" and "Which path should FamilyMart follow?" While summarising the pros and cons of each possible solution, Prof. Lin highlighted four online development models, as well as related tactics concerning people, goods, online and offline channels.

In view of the case teaching "pain points" collected from participants prior to the class, Prof. Liang Neng explained the "learning theory" behind the case teaching method, including the motivation to learn, learning strategies and the working mechanism of the human brain in the learning process. He then led the participants in building case teaching roadmaps suitable for their respective disciplines.

In his presentation, Prof. Zhang Hua demonstrated the theoretical framework of supply chain finance with in-depth discussions on two selected cases, namely, "Jinhuobao: A B2B E-Commerce Platform for FMCG in the New Retail Era", which won the Best Case Award of 2017 Contest, and "Liming Books Co." Participants were also guided in analysing whether the decisions in the cases were reasonable based on the theoretical knowledge they had learned. Finally, Prof. Zhang shared his experience about how to teach and develop cases in accounting and finance courses, emphasising issues such as universality, reproducibility, and the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Prof. Byron Y. Lee gave lectures to both Chinese and English classes, using the Harvard case "Negotiating Equity Splits at UpDown". He compared the UpDown case to paper writing in academic research that the participants could relate to. During the negotiation simulation part of the session, participants learned about the key elements of negotiations by personally playing different roles in a start-up with the 3R model introduced by the professor. In the end, Prof. Lee shared his experience about how to reprocess teaching notes and explore the discussion results of students to achieve more teaching goals.

From left to right: Prof. Lin Chen; Prof. Byron Y. Lee; Prof. Liang Neng; Prof. Zhang Hua

Prof. Hyun Young Park presented the English class with a classic case entitled "SONY AIBO: The World's  First Entertainment Robot", addressing the 4Ps of marketing (price, place, product and promotion). She also demonstrated how to make use of six whiteboards to enrich teaching content and strengthen teaching structure in the process of case teaching. At the same time, she shared her experience about how to explore different perspectives in the same case for different target audiences, and how to choose between comprehensive and professional knowledge. Prof. S. Ramakrishna Velamuri cited cases he had developed to involve participants in brainstorming and encouraged them to propose solutions for addressing the pain point of students being reluctant to read long cases. More specifically, he demonstrated the use of dialectical thinking in cases with a short case about "Huawei: Mobile Innovation Centres". He also inspired the participants' train of thought in case writing with a video case entitled "Ichido: Growth Challenge" and discussed the definition of a good company with the case "Luckin Coffee Business Model".

From left to right: Prof. Byron Y. Lee; Prof. Hyun Young Park; Prof. S. Ramakrishna Velamuri

In addition, an experience sharing session on "How to Develop High-quality Teaching Cases" was arranged during the event. Prof. Vincent Chang and Case Writer Zhu Qiong, who were among the Best Case Award winners of the 2018 Contest, shared their experience about how to develop high-quality cases by decoding ten factors (motivation, purpose, positioning, starting point, research, route, mentality, balance, dilemma and creation). Prof. Chen Shimin, as a chief editor and member of the International Expert Panel for the Contest, then summarised the characteristics of high-quality teaching cases, offered case development suggestions, and pinpointed some common problems observed in review work. Finally, Ms. Wang Dan, Senior Editor of the Center, explained in detail the submission and review process for the Contest. All of the participants played an active role in raising questions and discussing ways to improve case development quality.

Prof. Vincent Chang shares his experience about how to develop high-quality cases

Over the course of the two-day event, CEIBS faculty's profound expertise in case studies and classroom management, full dedication to teaching process design and persistent efforts in teaching practices left participants with a deep impression, as expressed in the following comments:

"Classes given by CEIBS professors have completely reshaped my perception about teaching, especially case teaching in class."

"Reflecting fully on the essence of fine management, the academic administration and logistics impressed me a lot.”

The CEIBS Case Master Development Camp is held twice a year to promote case teaching and development. The first batch of 2019 has come to an end and the second batch will be held on December 2-3, 2019.