Professor TaohuaOUYANGgaveakeynote speechof"TheCognition and Actionof Cases"duringthe seventh "Annual Conference on Management Case Studies" held in Wuxi Jiangnan UniversityonApril 23, 2016.Professor Ouyang shared her experiences and understanding on the writing of case study research, as well as the application and innovation of theories with the audiences.
The keynote speech started witha Chineseancient storyas an example, to illustratethe principles ofconductingcaseresearch.Specifically, a case researcher shall link the case study with existing theories as well as the industrial practices. A case shouldbe arefined story developed from the highlycomplex businesscontext with the insights on it.
Then,ProfessorOuyangsuggested that an ideal case development process may serve multiple purposes, achieving multi-win situation among teachers, students and practitioners. An excellent case development process may serve in four aspects: (1) dissertation for completing MBA degree, (2) teaching cases development as course material ofbusinessschool, (3) case research paper for journal publication, and (4) grant application withinterestingand practically important topics.
Next，ProfessorOuyangdiscussedthe obstaclestowards“leveraging on a case in multiple ways”.Bycomparingexcellent teaching cases andresearchcases,three sharedelementswere identified, namely, story, theory and analysis.Then two key challenges during the development from a teaching case to a case research paper were pointed out: (1) to identify scientificresearchquestion in a caseresearchpaper, in contrast with to identify certain management issues for a teaching case, and (2) to create theoretical development in a caseresearchpaper, in contrast with to apply existing theoretical literature to explain the story in a teaching case.
Finally,advices onoverthoseobstacleswere discussed.
