ESSEC Business School Professor Peter O’Connor Named the Case Centre’s Award and Competition 2019 Overall Winner

ESSEC Business School professor, Peter O’Connor’s case study won the Overall Award at The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2019.

The Case Centre, established in 1973, is the result of a joint initiative by 22 higher education institutions who wanted a reliable facility for sharing case materials among business teachers.  The Case Centre houses the world’s largest collection of management cases, articles, book chapters and teaching materials.

Each year since 1991, The Case Centre has recognized outstanding case writers and teachers from across the globe through its case study competition.  The Case Centre’s 11 Awards and five Competitions celebrate excellence in case writing and teaching at schools of business, management and government worldwide.  The awards recognize the cases that have been used in the largest number of organizations across the globe in the past year in nine management categories:

• Economics, Politics and Business Environment
• Entrepreneurship
• Ethics and Social Responsibility
• Finance, Accounting and Control
• Human Resource Management/Organizational Behavior
• Knowledge, Information and Communication Systems Management
• Marketing
• Production and Operations Management
• Strategy and General Management

This year, the Overall Winning Case, on Accor’s digital marketing, was co-authored by ESSEC Professor Peter O’Connor. He worked on the case study with colleagues from Harvard Business School (HBS) and the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

According to Professor O’Connor, “I am a true believer in discovery learning, particularly for more senior level students and managers. Thus, I make extensive use of the case method, profiting from the flexibility that it can bring, and the chance it gives to explore the issues of most importance to the particular group with which I am working, as well as highly current issues and priorities. Having used many excellent cases in the past, I’m glad that I was able to help create something of quality that is appreciated by other teachers.”

O’Connor also went on to explain why he believed this case study stood out among all the others. “Today success in the hospitality industry is based on two interrelated factors - managing your real estate, and managing your distribution.  Accor is innovative on both of these issues and thus provided the perfect setting for the case. From this base, we selected a highly topical and strategic issue – channel selection – and highlighted the dilemma that many businesses, in hospitality and outside – currently face.  Thus, the case has relevance for a wide variety of audiences, from those interested in hospitality, to retail, to ecommerce and elsewhere.  In addition, the subject is also flexible in terms of level – it can be addressed strategically by senior managers or in much more detail by classes interested in the technical detail of ecommerce operations.  I think that this flexibility really helps it stand out from the crowd.”

Peter O'Connor is a Professor of Information Systems at ESSEC and the Chaired Professor of the Digital Disruption Chair by BNP Paribas.  His research, teaching and consulting interests focus on technology, distribution, e-commerce and electronic marketing particularly applied to the hospitality sector.   

This award represents a first-time Overall win for ESSEC, which has won two category awards in previous years.

For the complete list of awards and competition winners, please feel free to visit the Case Centre’s website: https://www.thecasecentre.org/educators/casemethod/awards/winners/2019