CEEMAN Case Writing Competition

About

The aim of the CEEMAN & Emerald Case Writing Competition is to encourage and promote the development of high-quality teaching case material relevant for the realities of dynamic and emerging economies, and at the same time to promote the development of case-writing capabilities in those countries. Since its launch in the 1990s, the Case Writing Competition has amassed over 650 cases from 80 countries, and it is with pleasure that we observe what an impact they have had on management education that strives to be relevant to its environments and stakeholders.

In the spirit of a fully inclusive competition, global submissions are encouraged. As the co-organizers, Emerald Group Publishing will support global exposure of the submitted high-quality cases through a direct link with Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies  (EMCS), a growing collection of around 700 case studies with teaching notes. All case submissions will be considered for international publication in EMCS.

The total CEEMAN/Emerald award prize pool is worth over €10,000, including €4,000 prize money. Prizes are awarded to the overall winner and two runners-up.

Previous webinars on Case Writing

• Webinar on writing teaching cases: Tuesday, 30 November 2021, 4:00-5:00 PM CET - Watch the recording!
• Second webinar on case writing: Thursday, 24 March 2022, 2:00-3:00 PM CET - Watch the recording!
• NEW Masterclass: How to write a successful teaching case study: Wednesday, 7 December 2022 - Watch the recording!
• Webinar on How to Write a Successful Teaching Case: Wednesday, 7 February 2024 - Watch the recording!

Important Dates

Early case submission deadline: 29 February 2024 

Case submission deadline: 30 April 2024

Announcement of winners: June 2024

Award ceremony: winners will be announced during the CEEMAN Annual Meeting at the CEEMAN Annual Conference in September 2024 (Location TBC)

Compulsory submission criteria

• Cases should have a developing and emerging markets focus (Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Middle East).
• All cases should be teaching cases based on a real situation in a real company, with a clear decision-making situation, and prepared in accordance with case writing guidelines provided in the instructional materials below.
• Academic (research) cases will not be accepted for evaluation by the jury.
• Case studies submitted should not have been published before in their current or substantially similar form, or be under consideration for publication in any ISSN/ISBN-registered publication or with any other case center.
• By entering the competition you are committing to publishing your paper in EMCS on an exclusive basis, subject to successful peer review.
• All case studies must be accompanied by a consent to publish release form which has been completed and signed by the management of the company or individuals included in the case.

Submitting your case

Entries should be submitted to the CEEMAN 2024 competition at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/eemcs. When submitting, select regular issue in the dropdown menu.

All cases must be prepared in accordance with the EMCS Author Guidelines. Page two of the guidelines contains instructions on submitting through ScholarOne Manuscripts.

The following documents must be submitted:

1. Case title page
2. Case
3. Case teaching note
4. Case release document from the management of the company or individuals included in the case (see Consent to publish form)

Please note

• Permissions documentation must be supplied for any content that is not of the author’s own making, including tables and figures from other sources. Please read Emerald’s permissions guidelines http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/authors/writing/permissions.htm
• Full Harvard-style referencing must be used for secondary data sources
• Cases will be automatically entered into the peer review process. Selected cases will be published in Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies [EEMCS] collection [ISSN 2045-0621]. By submitting your case to the competition you are agreeing to have your case published in EMCS and complete a minimum of 2 rounds of review if required. Please note that the cash prizes are only paid upon publication of the cases (or at the conclusion of the second revision stage if not published earlier) and cases cannot be submitted for publication elsewhere while being considered by EMCS.

Copyright

Emerald reserves the right to publish the cases submitted for the competition. If the editorial team of the Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies collection would like to publish a case submission, the editor will contact the author with an offer to do so.

By submitting your case study to the competition you are agreeing to have your case published in EMCS and complete a minimum of 2 rounds of review if required. If Emerald decides not to publish the case, Emerald will waive its first claim to publication and the authors will be free to submit their case to another publication.

In the event of publication, authors will retain the academic freedom to contribute to the wider distribution and readership of their work. This includes the right to use their work as part of their own teaching. The rights retained by the author are explained fully in the Emerald Authors' Charter. 

 

Guidance materials for authors

1. Author Guidelines
2. Tips on preparing and submitting case studies
3. Competition evaluation checklist
4. Guildines for writing a teaching note
5. Emerald Cases Hub - a free resource, designed to support the writing and teaching of case studies. 

Prizes

The value of the total prize pool is over €10,000, which will be distributed as follows:

The overall winner will be awarded:

• Monetary prize of €2,500
• Publication of the case in Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies
• A full scholarship for CEEMAN’s International Management Teachers Academy-IMTA
• Free participation at the 32nd CEEMAN Annual Conference (conference fee waiver)

The first runner-up will be awarded:

• Monetary prize of €1,000
• Publication of the case in Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies
• 50% scholarship for CEEMAN’s International Management Teachers Academy-IMTA
• Free participation at the 32nd CEEMAN Annual Conference (conference fee waiver)

The second runner-up will be awarded:

• Monetary prize of €500
• Publication of the case in Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies
• 30% scholarship for CEEMAN’s International Management Teachers Academy-IMTA
• Free participation at the 32nd CEEMAN Annual Conference (conference fee waiver)

Depending on the quality and number of submissions, additional awards may be bestowed in different categories. If a winning case has more than one author, the prize will be split among the co-authors (the prize may be subject to local taxes). Full evaluations from the competition’s judging panel will be made available to authors upon request.

FAQ

I have recently prepared a suitable teaching case which will be available in open access. Can I submit this case for the CEEMAN Case Writing Competition?

Please note that submitted case studies should not have been published before in their current or substantially similar form. Neither should they be under consideration for publication in any ISSN/ISBN-registered publication or with any other case center.

Can my case be based on secondary sources such as newspaper articles, online news sources, etc.?

While participants are not barred from submitting teaching case material based on secondary sources, cases that are the result of the author's own research is strongly favored by CEEMAN and members of the Competition’s jury as the aim of this competition is to gather particularly immersive and authentic teaching cases. Cases based on primary sources may have an advantage in the evaluation process.

Do I have to be associated with a higher education institution to be eligible for the competition? Can I submit my case as a private entrepreneur or is the competition only meant for academic professors?

There are no restrictions when it comes to who can submit their work to the Case Writing Competition. However, there are several criteria that the case itself needs to meet in order for it to be considered for the competition.

Do I need to provide a company consent to publish release form if the company name is disguised and some facts in the case are changed?

Cases are often written in such a way that the names of the involved individuals and the actual company are disguised. Typically, this is handled with a footnote early on in the case that says something to the effect that the case is based on a real company, that the names were changed at the company’s request or that the names are fictionalized. Sometimes financial data is changed, similarly at the request of the company. Typically, there is a note on the financial statements that says that the financials have been adapted at company request, yet all key relationships remain the same.  Most cases have some degree of reorganization to highlight the key issue(s) in the case.

However, even if the name of the company will not be publicly tied to the teaching case, the company still needs to sign the release form, acknowledging that it has agreed to have the case researcher develop the case and it is based on true information. The real identity of the company will only be known to the case judges and the administrator of the competition, who will keep this information in strict confidence.

Is it alright to submit a fictional case based on a compilation on various information sources?

In essence, a composite breaks the underlying premise that the cases submitted to the CEEMAN & Emerald Case Writing Competition is a description of reality (a real situation that a real company is facing or has faced in the past). Such cases will therefore not be considered by the jury.

Is it mandatory for the winners to attend the CEEMAN Annual Conference Award Ceremony? In case the author could not attend, how would you be paying the prize money to the winners?

It is not necessary for winners to attend the Conference, free participation at the event is only offered as part of the award. Cash prizes are transferred directly from Emerald to the winners upon publication of the cases (or at the conclusion of the second revision stage if not published earlier) and are not related to attendance at the Conference.

We would like to send our case for early submission but the teaching note will probably not be ready yet. Is it necessary to submit the case and teaching note to receive the early feedback? Or is it fine to send only the case?

Please note that the teaching note is a very important part of the submission and no meaningful feedback can be provided without it. To submit the case for early feedback, at least a well-developed draft of the teaching note is required.

How do I submit my case for the early submission?

The link for early submission is actually the same as it is for final submission. Entries should be submitted to the CEEMAN 2024 competition at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/eemcs.

Are we allowed to change the title of the case after early submission?

Yes, you can change the title. You just need to edit the title when you revise and re-submit. Make sure you don’t submit it as a new case study, otherwise we’d loose the trail of the first version. If you need help with that, you can reach out to Melissa Close at mclose@emerald.com.

After the competition results are declared, do we have the permission to publish our output on a different forum, in case ours is not one of the winning entries selected for publication with Emerald?

All cases that are submitted for the Case Writing Competition are considered for publication with Emerald. Cases that are submitted but do not win the competition are still considered for publication in EMCS where authors are paid £100 upon publication of the case by Emerald. So after the competition results are known, all of the submitted cases go into review process. By submitting to the competition you are agreeing to complete a minimum of 2 rounds of review if required, so you would not be free to submit elsewhere until this obligation is fulfilled and if 2 rounds of review has not resulted in acceptance. If, after the review, Emerald decides not to publish your case, you are free to submit your case to another publication.

For cases that do not win the competition, but are still published by Emerald - is the £100 a one-time royalty payment from Emerald, or will there be subsequent payments of royalty to the authors on sale of the case in the future?

The £100 is a one off payment no publication of your case in EMCS. This is per case rather than per author but can be shared between authors if you wish, e.g. £50 each. No further royalties are made.

I have a question related to writing style, case structure, the tone of the case, teaching notes etc.

Please consult the Case Evaluation Checklist. It covers a range of questions related to these matters.

If you wish to know more about teaching notes in particular, we recommend you also review the Competition’s official guide on how to write a teaching note. Among other things, it lists a set of common mistakes that will help you prepare an applicable and useful teaching note.

If none of the questions listed here address your concerns, please contact Melissa Close, Cases Commissioning Lead at Emerald Publishing, at mclose@emerald.com or CEEMAN Director Aigerim Kaumenova at aigerim.kaumenova@ceeman.org.

Contacts

Aigerim KaumenovaCEEMAN Director
aigerim.kaumenova@ceeman.org

Melissa CloseCases Commissioning Lead at Emerald Publishing
mclose@emerald.com