Michael Gordon (U. Michigan) wins the oikos Case Writing Competition 2010 in the social entrepreneurship track. The first prize in the corporate sustainability track goes to Madeleine Pullman (Portland State U.).

With more than 40 accepted submissions from four continents, the 2010 Competition received an excellent feedback from the global case writing community.  Prof. Michael Gordons’ winning social entrepreneurship case “So You Want to Be a Social Entrepreneur: Starting Out, Scaling Up and Staying Committed”chronicles the growth of a social venture that aims to improve access to water by implementing sustainable solutions. Case readers will learn about the challenges of creating and scaling up a social venture (Wello) from the perspective of an MBA student.

 

Madeleine Pullman developed her winning case “Portland Roasting Company: Farm Friendly Direct” in the corporate sustainability track together with a number of MBA students at Portland State University. The case addresses the challenges in decision-making related to marketing and operations strategy in the coffee industry, in particular pros and cons of certification and the challenges of measuring and monitoring social programmes in the developing world. The 1st place prize for the best case in social entrepreneurship and corporate sustainability tracks is CHF 5000.-

 

Second prize in the social entrepreneurship track went to a team from New Zealand (Waikato Management School and Auckland University of Technology) - Steve Bowden, Kate Kearins, Eva Collins and Helen Tregigda – for the case “Good Water: Standing on Holy Ground”. In the corporate sustainability track the second prize was won by Andrea Erin Bass (University of Nebraska-Omaha, USA) for an outstanding business model illustration on  “Lululemon’s commitment to the environment: A tangle of seaweed, suppliers, and social responsibility”. The prize money for the second place is CHF 2000.-

 

A third prize was awarded in the  social entrepreneurship track to Hadiya Faheem and Debapratim Purkayastha (ICMR Center for Management Research, India) for their case “WaterHealth International: Providing Safe Drinking Water to the Bottom of the Pyramid Consumers”. And by focussing on radical innovation in the automotive industries, Ramalingam Meenakshisundaram and Besta Shankar (ICMR Center for Management Research, India) won third prize in the  corporate sustainability track with their case  on “Business Model Innovation by Better Place: A Green Ecosystem for the Mass Adoption of Electric Cars”. The prize money for the third place is CHF 1000.- .

 

The winning cases were selected in a double-blind review by the oikos judging committee comprised of distinguished scholars from more than 30 universities from all around the world including Prof. Stephen Kobrin (Wharton, USA), Prof. Julie Battilana (Harvard Business School, USA), Prof. Johanna Mair (IESE Barcelona, Spain),  Prof. Roberto Gutiérrez (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia) and other leading faculty. The complete list of the 2010 winning cases as well as their downloadable inspection copies can be accessed here.

 

The winning cases 2010 will be presented by the authors at the Academy of Management Conference (Montreal) on Friday, August 6, 2010.

 

Are you interested to submit your case for the 2011 Global Case Writing Competition? Please see the Call for Cases 2011.