Case Research Center (CRC) Case study

INTRODUCTION

It was almost the start of December 2014 when Mr. Shafqat Bhatti, the senior manager of Case Research Centre, was thinking about the arrangements of the upcoming conference in Malaysia.

He was going over the problems that were faced by the delegates in the earlier conference held at Bangalore (India) and wondered how to go about avoiding these troubles in the upcoming conference.

BACKGROUND

Ranked as one of the top business schools in the region, SDSB LUMS does not only focus on the pedagogical techniques of the faculty but also encourages them to be involved in academic and applied research globally. For the latter purpose, SDSB has three research centers working namely Strategic Sectors Research Centre (SSRC), Case Research Centre (CRC) and Social Enterprise Development Centre (SEDC). This case will be focusing on the Case Research Centre of SDSB.

Essentially, the CRC plays the role of a coordinator and editor in the development of wellresearched case studies written by the SDSB faculty. The CRC has also been granted access to the teaching material produced by business schools in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region and it manages an inventory of cases, research papers and other teaching material for the LUMS faculty. One of the regular case research journal published by CRC bi-annually is called the "Asian Journal of Management Cases". Over the past 28 years, CRC has banked in its database of more than 450 cases written by the faculty of LUMS from many different disciples. There are approximately hundred more cases in the pipeline for approval. The unique thing about these cases is that they are drawn by the faculty of SDSB from real-life issues of the organizations in Pakistan.

The Case Research Center has a very important role to play in accomplishing the mission of SDSB which is:

1.      To develop individuals with the integrity and intellectual capacity to assume a leadership role in society.

2.      To impact the practice of management.

3.      To contribute to knowledge generation and dissemination.

The CRC contributes towards the three-fold mission stated above. The functions of CRC include the reviewing process of cases/research papers, arranging training sessions, workshops, and monthly SDSB Faculty Case round table, publish cases in Asian Journal of Management Cases (AJMC), maintaining database of cases and arranging conferences. The knowledge generation is done through the Case Roundtables that facilitate the development of case studies by encouraging discussion and peer-review of work-in-progress. The dissemination of this knowledge is done through conferences that are held by the CRC.

Previously, the CRC had two conferences, namely AJMC (Asian Journal of Management Cases) and IRMC (International Research Conference on Contemporary Management Practices). They have now been combined under the name of SAMRC after the international collaboration with IIMB (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore).

South Asian Management Research and Case Conference

3rd South Asian Management Research and Case Conference 2013 (SAMRC) was held in IIMB,

Bangalore, India on December 27-29, 2013. The theme of the conference was “Celebrating South Asia: Explorations of the Contributions to Global Economy.”

The vision of the conference was to “Increase the strategic role of South Asia in the global economy, especially in the context of other emerging economies”. Moreover, the conference aimed to “Bring together scholars engaged in research and case writing on the unique business models and practices prevalent in South Asia” in the context of management research and education.

Given the theme of the conference, academic contributions were invited on the following tracks:

1.      Teaching cases

2.      Research papers

3.      Panel proposals

4.      Proposals for doctoral colloquia

Important deadlines for the conference were following:

1.       Submission deadline - August 15, 2013

2.       Review decision - September 05, 2013

3.       Early bird registration date - September 30, 2013

4.       Regular registration date - November 30, 2013

5.       Doctoral colloquia date - December 26, 2013

6.       Conference date - December 27-29, 2013

The detailed conference schedule is attached (Exhibit 1).

Basic criterion for accepting submissions was based on their “originality, rigor, and relevance to the conference theme”. Being a host, IIMB was responsible for issuing the call for submissions globally. However, conference committee members from LUMS also sent call for submissions to related universities in Pakistan. The call for submissions states what sort of papers the conference committee is looking for, the conference agenda and the schedule.  Refer to Exhibit 2 for a sample call for papers sent by Dr. Junaid Ashraf to Dr. Farooq-e-Azam, Dean Faculty of Management Sciences, IBT Karachi.

Submissions were made on the conference website. According to Abdul Karim, member of the conference committee, IIMB sent the Pakistani articles to CRC. CRC filtered out the ones which were not aligned with the conference’s main theme and then sent the rest to blind reviewers for reviewing. Blind reviewers accepted, rejected or granted conditional acceptance to the article along with feedback to the author via the CRC. The author makes the necessary changes after which the CRC sends the review form back to IIMB. IIMB then communicates the final decision to author via email. 

In total 150 submissions were received out of which 51 were from Pakistan and 15 were from LUMS. A total of 94 submissions were accepted out of which 42 were from Pakistan. It is notable that all 15 papers from LUMS were accepted. Only 88 people were present in the conference, either physically or virtually via Skype. 

Conference fee for delegates from South Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh) was 3000 Indian Rupees and for delegates from all other nations was US$75.

The Conference managing committee comprised of renowned Professors from LUMS and IIMB:

•      Abdul Karim Khan, Lahore University of Management Sciences

•      Anjula Gurtoo, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

•      Ganesh N Prabhu, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

•      Junaid Ashraf, Lahore University of Management Sciences (Conference Chair)

•      Muhammad Naiman Jalil, Lahore University of Management Sciences

•      R Srinivasan, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (Conference Chair)

•      Shazib E. Shaikh, Lahore University of Management Sciences

This event was organized by the research committee which made all the policies and supervised the organization process while the administrators (e.g. directors and editors) implemented those policies and organized the conference. The focus of the conference and content of papers was decided by the research committee.  The conference secretariat comprised four members from each university. Junaid Ashraf was the conference chair from LUMS and he had three faculty members namely Shazib E. Sheikh, Abdul-Karim and Abdul Rehman Malik to assist him. R Srinivasan was the conference chair from IIMB. Ayesha was the administrative editor (she looked after issues like publishing and conference proceedings and proofreading) mainly but she also made academic decisions (which mainly involved making sure that the theme of the papers is aligned to the theme of the conference.) She acted as the first buffer check in the system. Academic decisions were mainly done by the associate dean (Junaid Ashraf). The conference was financed by various sponsors including SAGE and the fee submitted by delegates. The logistics were handled by IIMB. 

CHALLENGES AND HURDLES

The conference fell short in some areas due to certain short comings in the planning, management, and the communication strategies employed by CRC and the organizing committee. Following are some of the problems that were identified with regard to their communication strategy; 

Communicate to Legitimize?

Once a conference is planned with its theme decided, CRC announces a call for papers from scholars and institutes around the world.  It aims at attracting a global audience, however most of the time it fails. One major reason is the absence of legitimacy for LUMS in general and the SAMRC as a conference amongst the international community. People would not want to pay and travel halfway around the world for a conference if they are not sure that it is going to be worth the effort. “No one knows about SAMRC”, said Shoaib-ul-Haq, a teacher at LUMS and a former participant in the 2013 SAMRC conference.

Moreover, the fields of study covered by the conference are limited and many people are turned down due to the fact that their area of specialization is not relevant to the conference theme. Similarly the issue of legitimacy arises when CRC is trying to convince experts of different fields to review the research articles on a volunteer basis. Most of the participants in the conference are Indians and Pakistanis. There is a need to attain global acceptability by ensuring attendance and participation of a diverse group of renowned scholars from around the globe. For this, CRC needs more resources and a larger budget to expand and modernize itself but at the same time there is a need to effectively communicate the true worth, the mission, vision and objectives of the conference to the general public to gain legitimacy. 

Communication of criteria for evaluation:

The initial call for papers sent out by the CRC to institutions all around the globe contains a brief description of the kind of papers it is looking for the purpose of the SAMRC (Exhibits 3). It states that “management issues for sustainable business, especially in the context of emerging markets” are the focus of this conference. It also states that “submissions may take the form of research papers or teaching case studies” and that all submissions will be reviewed based on “originality, rigor, and relevance to the conference theme”. The call for papers contains insufficient information to communicate effectively to the delegates what the submissions should actually look like. In contrast, the call for submissions for the Academy of Management- one of the leading global conferences for Management (Exhibit 4) contains detailed information about subject divisions and interest groups, code of ethics, program session types and other relevant topics. Communication of insufficient information about proper guidelines is a hindrance to the development of trust and confidence among potential delegates and reduces the likelihood of them to register and pay for the event. 

Visa issue and contingency plan (Skype):

A major stumbling block for the success of SAMRC 2013 was the non-issuance of visas by the Indian embassy. Many delegates from Pakistan, most of which were from LUMS, did not get their visas issued on time and so they could not attend the conference. As LUMS was a co-host of the event, the non-issuance of visa became a greater problem. According to CRC, the Indian embassy does not respond to telephone calls at all, so it was no use trying to contact it to speed up the visa process. 

A similar problem arose during the previous conference (AJMC, January 2013) which was held in Pakistan. Eleven people from India were supposed to attend it but only six people got their visas and the rest were unable to attend. When asked about their opinion on the thought that the

Indian government had denied the Pakistani delegates’ visas in retaliation to this, the CRC officials appeared to be divided over the issue. “It is always a mutual game”, said Mr. Shafqat while Mr. Shoaib maintained a more optimistic stance and said, “I don’t think it was reciprocated”. The CRC appeared to be convinced that IIMB tried its best to negotiate with the Indian government to process the visas on time. “Indo-Pak relations have always been very volatile. When the Pakistani government denied/delayed the visas for the Indian delegates, the Indian government had to reciprocate the gesture and deny our delegates Indian visas in the subsequent conference. But if we had anticipated earlier we could have worked on a Plan B instead”, said Abdul-Rehman Malik, a professor at LUMS and one of the delegates of the conference who did not get their visas. 

The delegates who did not get visas participated in the conference via a Skype session that was organized by CRC at LUMS. However a major failure on the part of CRC was that although a similar disaster had occurred only a year ago and they had every reason to believe that it would happen again they had failed to communicate this effectively to the delegates and mentally prepare them for the fact that they might not be able to attend the conference at all. Further, they had not thought of a plan B beforehand, should such a situation arise, and so they had to plan the Skype session on the eleventh hour. Only delegates from LUMS were able to attend the Skype session because the details could not be communicated to participants from other institutes in Pakistan. “When we did eventually encounter the issue, conducting a virtual conference was one of the solutions but that did not work out as well as it could have. We could have publicized the virtual conference beforehand, for greater audience involvement. Advertisement would have been done on a larger scale”, said Abdul-Rehman Malik. 

Up to the date of the conference in India, the situation was very ambiguous. CRC wasn’t clear on whether or not the visas would be issued or not, so were the delegates. There was a grey area with regard to the issuance. This highlights the extent of the communication gap between the event organizers and the external parties vital to the success the event, in this case the Indian Embassy. 

Delay of Review?

The delegates have to first send in their case/ research paper entries via the online portal. Once they are received by the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), the IIMB is responsible for filtering the papers in accordance with their alignment with the conference themes and the respective conference agenda. Once they have been filtered, they are sent back to the CRC for further review, the CRC then assigns blind reviewers, mostly instructors who further check for formatting. This paper will then be sent back to the author of the paper for rectification of any errors.  

Some faculty members do not review cases on time, so some articles have to be submitted without the necessary changes.  One reason for this is that reviewing takes time. To give a constructive feedback instructors need time for review. Some cases are received ahead of time; however some are submitted on deadlines which give insufficient time for review.

According to Muhammad Asim, one of the faculty members, “CRC sends polite reminders, which may not always be enough.”

This reflects how the CRC’s communication with the delegates and reviewers via emails is not effective enough. 

Review Status:

Usually the case processing works in such a way that after the applicant submits his case an acknowledgement email is received which states the review stage of the case. The delegates do not know whether the case review has progressed or it is still with the desk editor. This reflects badly on the CRC as many delegates who are participating from universities other than LUMS may have difficulty in contacting the CRC. This might even be a hassle for LUMS instructors who are already pre-occupied with their own work. As Adnan Zahid mentioned; “The least effective way of communication is via email, and the most effective, is, of course personal (faceto-face) interaction.”

After the paper has been reviewed and accepted, an email is sent to the participants stating the due date for registration and the requirements for acquiring a visa. The applicants then have to carry out visa processing on their own. 

Many delegates do not even check their emails; some delete their emails before even skimming through them. The CRC does conduct a follow up after emails on registration, but this is also feasible for only those delegates situated at LUMS. For others, phone calls are made.

The SAMRC website was one of the tools used for conference management; however, it lacked the kind of robustness which is required of a web-portal which should be self-sufficient in guiding and facilitating the conference delegates. Adnan Zahid compared the site for Harvard

Business Review with that of SAMRC, stating that there is a ‘Chicken & Egg difference’. Such websites are expected to have proper review progress for each participant, rankings for different case papers, top researches as well as a user friendly interface. The AMRC website is not as effective as a communication tool.

Live Updates:

In order to facilitate delegates who are on their way to the conference, a conference schedule is drawn up which lists down activities for the entire conference period. This, of course, is a tentative plan as not everything can go as planned.

According to Naiman Jalil, who was also one of the members of the organizing committee, many conferences have a separate communications department that broadcasts the various happenings. CRC lacks this kind of communication. A schedule is available on the web portal (Exhibit 1) which specifies the venues and the schedule. However, due to unforeseen circumstances changes may have to be made and if all the delegates aren’t present at the same place, these changes may be impossible to communicate at a moment’s notice; resulting in slow and ineffective transmission of information to the delegates.

Such changes in schedule and venues by various media (including blogs and twitter) for the participants as well as the general public are available on other international conference portals, but was lacking on SAMRC web site. 

Development of Brand Identity:

The CRC had two conferences, namely AJMC (Asian Journal of Management Cases) and IRMCP (International Research Conference on Contemporary Management Practices). AJMC focused mainly on case studies while IRMCP focused on research papers. In 2013, they were combined under the name of SAMRC after the international collaboration with IIMB (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore).

The next conference is a collaboration with another institute from Malaysia namely UniversitiSains Malaysia (USM). Since Malaysia is not a part of South Asia, the name of the conference to be held in January 2015 has been decided to be AMRC (Asian Management Research and Case Conference). This constant changing of name of conference must have stunted the development of a brand identity for these conferences. The basic elements, such as the name, of an academic event identify and distinguish the brand in a participant’s mind. The absence of a consistent name for the conference must have caused the global perceptions of the conference to suffer by hindering the development of reputation of the conference. 

ALTERNATIVES

To help build awareness of their conference, increase paid attendance and boost advertising, CRC needs to improve their promotion and communication plan. Mr. Shafqat could consider many alternatives to solve the problems faced in SAMRC 2013 for future success.

Objectives

The objectives of developing a communication strategy would be as follows;

•      Improve feedback mechanism with stakeholders

•      Increase incoming audience and legitimize the conference 

•      Avoid obstacles through development of contingency plan

Stakeholders:

Major stakeholders in SAMRC 2013 could be divided into mainly three categories:

1.  Partners: This conference was a result of a joint collaboration between SDSB and IIMB and both were under constant communication. The internal Departments managed responsibilities independently and then discussed with HOD. Another partner was HEC Pak (Higher Education Commission), which was also sponsoring the event.

2.  Interested Bodies and Individuals: 

i.               MNC’s executives: Research papers document a phenomenon and add to the body of knowledge. Papers submitted for this conference would be grounded in established management theory and would pertain to any of the following disciplines, including strategy, organization behavior, human resources management, marketing, finance, accounting, operations management, information systems, entrepreneurship, economics and social sciences, public policy, corporate social responsibility, and natural environment. Furthermore brief (executive) cases were also included. They are explicitly focused on the decision to be made and therefore, these cases are structured with just the exposition of the problem at hand, with a passing reference to the context. Managers who are exposed to the research are eager to learn the practical implications

of the knowledge being offered and therefore focus their attention on the search for improvements.

ii.             Business Management Students: Teaching cases developed for the conference are targeted at business management undergraduate/graduate students in South Asia and elsewhere. These cases provide students with an opportunity to work with a range of evidence, and improving their ability to apply the vocabulary, theory and methods they have learned in the course. It enables them to devise and defend solutions to the problems at the heart of each case.

3.  Staff: This includes the internal department staff of CRC and the organizing committee. The organizing committee comprises of conference chairs from both LUMS and IMBB and other faculty members.

4.  Others: Moreover CRC was in constant contact with the Indian Embassy through intermediaries; they hired agents in American Express who would communicate with Indian High Commission for visas status update.

Strategic options and Outline of approach

Legitimacy

To substantiate their conference and increase incoming global audience CRC should be acquainted with what is current in management research to keep their conference up to date. Mr.

Shoaib-ul-Haq, a former SAMRC participant, suggested, “CRC should invite popular researchers who can provide legitimacy to the conference”. However to improve their promotion and invite researchers, more resources would be required. The conference’s goal of contribution and dissemination of knowledge should be effectively communicated to the global audience to substantiate the legitimacy of the conferences. 

External Communication

Another important consideration for CRC in external communication is the development of the current CRC website. Proper search tools, ratings, new articles, top researches and review progress should be incorporated. The name of the conference should remain consistent with a constant URL, which would improve brand identity and make it easier for participants to refer to it. 

The organizing committee should have a separate Communication & Public Relations Chair, responsible for publicity and public relations for the conference. Managing lists of media contacts and past and potential attendees should be efficiently handled. Key messages created beforehand along with, press releases and other written material should keep LUMS branding guideline under consideration in all the communication. CRC should work with journalists and news outlets to publicize the conference. Schedules for contacting media, sharing information and delivering key messages and important points about the conference should all be arranged in time and with collaboration with the host country.

IEEE, an association of technical professionals, uses an e-Notice service to send e-mails to the entire IEEE membership database. IEEE e-Notice is an electronic newsletter subscription service, which facilitates e-mail distribution of newsletters, meeting notices, social events, and IEEE conference materials.^[1] Likewise CRC should maintain a database of past participants and should keep them in touch with new ongoing events. A similar service should be introduced, which would aid in communication and retention of participants.

The publicity and communication plan of the conference should be segregated in terms of Preconference and Post-conference. The post-conference communication should aim at highlighting the success of the conference and the main events so that readers and participants will be motivated to attend the next conference.

CRC should designate a photographer for its conferences. Pictures from technical sessions, social gatherings, etc. should be used as a publicity tool to communicate the legitimacy of the conference, to attract a global audience.

The call for papers should contain sufficient information about proper guidelines to develop trust and curtail confusions among potential delegates and increase their likelihood to register and pay for the event. Like the Academy of Management, CRC should also include the details of the various subject categories that branch from the main theme of the conference. (Exhibit 4) Communication in a crisis

If CRC had foreseen the potential issue of visa, LUMS could have used some direct resources and contacts. For instance, Syed Babar Ali, one of the co-founders of LUMS has links in the Indian High Commission. Hence, something could have been done and a proper strategy could have been devised to operationalize these resources to resolve the issue. CRC should have probed the host, IMBB, to converse to the government and exploit the situation.

CRC should create an emergency response plan beforehand, which defines who is responsible and what should be done if a crisis occurs. There should be a contingency plan in place for situations such as visa issuance. A Skype conference could be one of the alternatives; however the time, venue and arrangements of a Skype conference should be planned and communicated to participants in advance. CRC could have publicized the virtual conference beforehand, for greater audience involvement. If CRC could introduce a service like IEEE e-notice, last minute changes can be communicated easily to the audience.

Delayed review

A few reviewers are not able to review cases on time due to late submission of papers from participants and consequently from CRC. Reviewers who do not have time to review on an urgent basis can ask CRC to send cases in advance. A reviewer advised that editing should be done on an earlier basis to minimize the delay. There should be an open feedback mechanism through which reviewers can propose recommendations either through personal contact or through online suggestion survey. 

Resources

The delivery of the strategy would be dealt by conference chairs of the organizing committee and Mr. Shafqat from CRC. 

•       Dr Junaid Ashraf (LUMS Conference Chair)

•       Dr R. Srinivasan (IIMB Conference Chair)

The increased costs associated would be of inviting renowned researchers, improving quality of website, increasing publicity through press release and journalists and developing an E-notice service.

The following table summarizes the projected costs and time line for the implementation of the communication strategy.

Audience	Communication Activity	Objective	Cost	Timeframe
Participants/ prospective participants	§  Maintaining social network presence §  Photographs	Legitimacy	Negligible	After one conference ends-call for papers for next conference
Participants/ prospective participants	§  Website quality: search tools, ratings, top researches, review progress §  Suitable Call for papers	Legitimacy, external communication	Negligible	Pre-conference, initial stage
Participants/ prospective participants	§  Media coverage §  Press Release §  Working with journalists	Legitimacy	Hiring, Publishing	During event
Reviewers	§  Feedback session §  Blind online suggestions survey	Become aware of issues and improvements	Negligible	One month after conference ends
Participants	§ E-notice service	Communicate live updates, contingency plans	Software development	During and after conference

CONCLUSION

Considering the issues faced in SAMRC 2013, Mr. Shafqat knew that the alternatives needed to be reflected on to avoid similar challenges in the future and to make the Asian Management Research and Case Conference (AMRC) 2015 a success.