LBS faculty among bestselling case study authors
Two London Business School faculty have been named among the Case Centre’s Top 50 Bestselling Case Authors for 2020/21.
Nader Tavassoli, Professor of Marketing, is tenth this year, while Herminia Ibarra, Charles Handy Professor of Organizational Behaviour, appears in the Top 50 list for the third consecutive year at Number 39.
Professor Tavassoli is the author of several case studies and also won the top prize in The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2021 for his case on ‘Dollar Shave Club: Disrupting the shaving industry’.
“My case writing always starts with a question of broad interest to managers,” he said.
“The Dollar Shave Club case was sparked by an interest how a ‘David’ could use a direct to consumer model to compete with a ‘Goliath’ like Gillette.
“The M-KOPA case set in rural Africa examines how to use machine-to-machine technology and data analytics to simultaneously deliver social purpose and profits.
“The Pret a Manger case explores how to pivot ones business model during the Covid-19 pandemic. As such, cases are not just a great way to engage students, but for me to keep abreast of the evolving business landscape.”
One of Professor Ibarra’s recent case studies, Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling a Growth Mindset, co-authored with LBS faculty Dr Aneeta Rattan and writer Anna Johnston, was given the Overall Winner Award in the Case Centre’s 2020 Awards and Competitions.
The Microsoft case has resonated with audiences, she said, because it deals with a topic everyone is interested in: how a leader can help transform an organization so that it becomes more agile, more innovative, more digitally savvy, more customer-centric, more inclusive, and more human.
Her follow up case, Jean-Philippe Courtois at Microsoft Sales: Empowering Digital Success on the transformation of Microsoft’s Sales organization shows how leaders below the CEO level can tailor corporate change mandates to their specific units’ needs and challenges, and apply a growth mindset to their own development as leaders.
The case study method is used by business schools around the world to bring lessons from the classroom to life for students and professionals. Through their exploration of real-world business scenarios and challenges faced by organisations and their leaders, case studies continue to provide valuable context and insight that puts theory into practice.
LBS has its own publishing hub for case studies, London Business School Case Collection, to allow students, instructors, and professionals to directly purchase case studies authored by its world class faculty.
