Translating (qualitative) research into impactful teaching cases: four lessons that I recently learned

I recently had the pleasure to visit 加拿大西安大略大学 - 毅伟商学院 , where I worked intensively with my dear friend Dr. Yasser Rahrovani on translating (qualitative) research into impactful teaching cases for executive education. It felt special to enculture within a leading in developing, publishing, and teaching world-class business cases. Especially as a qualitative researcher, I found it a unique opportunity to develop teaching cases from years of field work in the domain of implementation of algorithmic technologies in complex organizations. Let me share four lessons that stood out from all this experience:

1. Seeing from the perspective of executives: For writing an impactful teaching case, it is essential to constantly embody the position and perspectives of practitioners who are on the verge of making tough decisions, often with limited time, resources, and certainty.
2. Designing a generative learning experience: Writing a teaching case is not about offering a detailed, comprehensive account of the case, rather “designing a learning experience” that starts from practical questions, creates intentional suspension in the narration of the case, and engages managers with deep, critical reflections through concepts and theories.
3. Wisdom is in what not to reveal: A rather hidden but consequential part of a teaching case is the “teaching note” and creating a dance between what is revealed in the case (especially what is not revealed intentionally) and what is kept for provoking debates in the class, triggering new questions, and discovering ideas through generative conversations.
4. Be a pedagogist: Finally, translating rich, qualitative studies into teaching cases often requires us to strike a? balance between being an ethnographer, who is curious about all the details and a pedagogist who can foresee and design critical learning opportunities.

I also enjoyed the warm hospitality and intellectual exchange with Ivey faculty members, Isam Faik , Derrick Neufeld , Ting Li , Warren ritchie, Lameck Osinde , Fredrik Odegaard , and Ning Su ; where I presented my six-year research journey in understanding how analytical technologies impact knowledge work and expertise. It was also a special pleasure to meet and chat with brilliant PhD students, Mohammad Taleghani , Milad Saeedi , Leily Soleimanof , Amin Mazhari , Robert Park , and Fateme Bakhshi who are working on very exciting topics; there we discussed the challenges of going through PhD journey especially in balancing the range and depth of knowledge, and how to deal with difficult questions such as "what is special/different here, compared with ..." :-).