Award-winning Case Collection

My students and I love The Coffee of Andradas case because it is relatable and engaging. Almost everyone drinks coffee but has rarely paused to think about its origins and what it takes to go from the source to the cup in their hand. The case gives my students a glimpse into another country and culture that is very different from their own, which expands their minds tremendously.

It is rare to find a case that incorporates the tensions between the B2B and B2C parts of a business and managing both these markets for one organisation. The TomTom case provides a very good opportunity for students to explore this. It can be approached from many angles e.g. business strategy, but also from a marketing perspective in terms of branding and consumer behaviour.

The Fairphone case reveals particularly well the messiness of early phases of starts-ups, as well as acknowledges the importance of serendipitous events. It contrasts in a pedagogically clever way the assumed rational logic of enterprise creation with the more heuristic path, which is often true, but neglected in the academic literature. In addition, the Effectuation framework of Saraswathy in the teaching note offers a prominent theoretical framework for dealing with heuristic enterprise creation path.

‘Stuck in Gridlock’ addresses a timely and important issue at the intersection of energy transition, infrastructure constraints, and multi-stakeholder decision-making. The role-play design is engaging and well-suited for classroom discussion, particularly in business and public policy programmes. The teaching note is thoughtfully developed and provides clear guidance for instructors, making the case relatively easy to adopt across different course levels.

‘Managing Lean Success’ raises a much-needed debate between directive leadership and transformational leadership. Additionally, it gives the idea that lean management is not about tools but behaviour; that is much more like a philosophy than a technical question.