| Case Teaching Integral to Business Education in Africa |
International Finance Corporation-Global Business Network (IFC-GBSN) has been involved in an effort to develop African businesses and business schools faculty. So far more than 60 lecturers and 100 teaching case have been developed in this effort in the last three years.
Prof Luis Renart a specialist in export and multinational marketing, and in relationship marketing at IESE Business School in Spain has been involved in the training of Strathmore University lecturers in case writing for the last three years. He talked about the possible impact of his work For economic development to take happen, there is need for sound macro-economic development policies, and strong education system. Corruption needs to be stamped out and physical infrastructures such as railways, roads, airports and telephones should work. This depends and at the same time affects corporations. Corporations are key to economic development. And for corporations to impact the economy positively, they should be well managed. That is where I believe the case-writing effort comes in. I am training lecturers to write cases. This means identifying a business, and documenting its operations. The effort has four outcomes. The cases result in documenting of the firms. The lecturers then use the cases in class. This means the courses become more realistic and have relevant content since they draw from local examples. Since the lecturers go out to the field to write the cases, it means they become better in their teaching since they face real business situations The result is better lecturers who have extracted 'lessons to be learned' from the field. The lecturers also develop better business theories and business models describing how real Kenyan companies work. What is for sure is that lecturers trained in case writing teach and research better. This in turn translates to better business schools. And better business schools translate to better skilled managers. This in turn means efficient enterprises that pay reasonable salaries and remit taxes. Thus well managed corporations become catalysts for economic development as they are competently managed, socially responsible, and ethical. IESE has been using cases for the last 50 years. Maybe no study has been done but when Spain joined the then European Union (then European Community) in 1986, it was integrated and benefited faster economically than Portugal another Iberian Peninsula country or Greece which had even joined earlier. Maybe a study needs to be done to establish whether there was a linkage between the approach of Spanish business schools and the integration. |
