To address the growing demand for collaboration on promoting case study method in Asian-Pacific business schools, the CBCS and the AAPBS (the Association of Asia-Pacific Business Schools) co-organized a case session “The Collaboration on Asian Business Cases” during the AAPBS/NUS workshop in Singapore on May 21-22, 2009. The Deans of AAPBS member schools attended this event.

The Director of the CBCS, Professor Roger King gave an opening presentation “Bridging the Gap between Academia and Business”. In his presentation, Roger pointed out that “business schools treat business as a science rather than as a profession nowadays”, so that “excellent research is produced but little of it has a base in practical application”. He expected a big change among business schools and suggested case study method can be a good way to bridge the gap between the schools and the business world. He also introduced the development of the CBCS to the audience and urged greater collaboration among the AAPBS member schools to promote case study method.

The Associate Director Winnie Peng of the CBCS also gave a presentation on the summary of “A Survey on Using Case Studies" among AAPBS members, which was conducted by Winnie for AAPBS before the workshop took place. The survey was sent to the faculty members in each school. The result shows that the faculty members understand the importance of case study method. There is huge demand for high quality and more recent Asian cases and also demand for reward and recognition scheme for faculty members to write cases. Winnie helped to conduct a similar survey in HKUST in the summer of 2008, in which very similar results were found.

There were four other panelists from NUS, Keio, AIM and Nanyang Tech who gave presentation on the case development in their own institution. The case session was well received by the audience. The participants supported the idea of greater collaboration in organizing case writing and teaching workshops, creating a top-tier case journal, and establishing a case portal among AAPBS members. More actions were expected to be carried out soon.