Wits Business School wins big at 2022 Emerald/AABS case writing competition
- Wits University
WBS Case Centre takes top three spots at the awards.
Professor Boris Urban and Stephanie Townsend won first and third prize for their works titled, Beverley-Anne Joseph: Cheers to the Perseverance of an Entrepreneur and Ahmed Mujtaba Razzak: An Immigrant Entrepreneur with Big Dreams.
Second prize went to trio Dr Jabulile Msimango-Galawe, Dr Amanda Bowen and Angie Urban for their case titled, The Rise (and almost fall) of Maneli Pets.
The Emerald/AABS case writing competition has two main goals. First, it looks to encourage and promote the development of high-quality teaching case material, relevant to the realities of dynamic and African emerging markets. Second, it aims to support the development of case-writing capabilities in those countries.
Claire Beswick, the WBS Case Centre manager says the outcome of this year’s competition is hugely encouraging and is testament to the quality of work that WBS continues to produce to ensure the success of its students.
“I am extremely pleased with this achievement. The WBS Case Centre works very hard with its writers and WBS faculty members to produce excellent cases and teaching notes. We are well-known for the quality of the work we produce, and to take the top three positions in this prestigious competition is very exciting.”
“Case studies are a hugely effective teaching tool in management education and the lessons students learn from cases stay with them long after they have finished their courses and forgotten the detail of the theories they learned,” Beswick says.
As a case writing pioneer both in the country and the continent, WBS understood the value of creating local case studies which speak to the unique African context when it established its Case Centre in the late 1990s. The school appreciated that this would not only enhance the relevance of the content taught at the school, but also its applicability.
Today, the WBS Case Centre boasts over 350 cases in its collection. The cases cover the range of disciplines taught at the school, including entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, leadership and organisational design and development.
For Head of School and Director of WBS Professor Maurice Radebe, the wins affirm the school’s commitment to a world class education.
“I am very proud of the WBS Case Centre which has long produced highly relevant case studies which explore the challenges of doing business in an emerging market context,” Radebe says. ”This is an amazing achievement and proves that our cases are world class.”