The Business School Oscars

Six members of the Harvard Business School (HBS) faculty have won awards in the 2016 Case Centre competition. First presented in 1991, these annual awards, which the Financial Times has described as the “the business school Oscars,” aim to recognize worldwide excellence in case writing and raise the profile of the case method of learning.

Based at Cranfield University in the United Kingdom, the Case Centre is an independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting the case method in business education and sharing world-leading knowledge and expertise in case teaching, writing, and learning — a pedagogy first applied to management education more than 90 years ago at Harvard Business School.

This year’s HBS winners are:

• PROF. ANITA ELBERSE, who was named the outstanding case teacher by a panel of expert case method practitioners. This marks the first year that students were invited to provide nominations for the competition.
• PROF. ERIK STAFFORD, who was honored for his case “Valuation of Airthread Connections” (coauthored with Joel L. Heilprin) in the Finance, Accounting, and Control category.
• PROFS. BHARAT ANAND, SUNIL GUPTA, and FELIX OBERHOLZER-GEE, who were recognized for “The New York Times Paywall” (coauthored with former HBS faculty member Vineet Kumar) in the Marketing category.
• PROF. ERIC VAN DEN STEEN, who won for “Tesla Motors” in the Strategy and General Management category.

According to the Case Centre, the winning case in each category is the one that has achieved the highest growth in popularity worldwide based on sales to individual organizations during the last calendar year. Cases for each category are judged anonymously by expert panels to ensure impartiality.