Prof Debapratim Purkayastha, Associate Dean, ICFAI Business School (IBS), topped the list of best-selling case authors for the second consecutive year, from among 8,000 case authors worldwide. Just under 18,000 copies of his cases were sold worldwide during 2016-17.
UK-based The Case Centre, the world’s largest repository of case studies, revealed the top 40 best-selling authors for 2016-17. The other top-selling case authors, in order of ranking, were: Kamran Kashani from IMD, Switzerland; Christopher Bartlett from Harvard Business School; David B Yoffie, HBS; Vivek Gupta from GlobalData Plc, UK (ex- ICFAI Business School); Youngme Moon, also from HBS; Robert F Brunner, Darden School of Business, US; (Joint 8th) W Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, INSEAD, France; and in the 10th place is Pierre Chandon, INSEAD, France.
Innovative cases
Purkayastha, who teaches business strategy at IBS, is an award-winning case author and experienced case method workshop tutor. He won The Case Centre’s Outstanding Contribution to the Case Method Award in 2015. His pioneering case method achievements include the creation of highly original ‘comic book’ cases with Siddharth Ghosh; leading over 40 inspirational case method workshops for research scholars, faculty members, and business executives; and his work as Consulting Editor of Case Folio , a refereed journal dedicated to management cases. He is also an Editorial Board Member for the Case Research Journal published by the North American Case Research Association.
In 2016, he emerged as the number one best-selling author of case studies in management when The Case Centre made this list public for the first time in its history.
Worldwide acceptance
Commenting on the achievement, Purkayastha, who also heads Case Research Centre at IBS, said: “I am honoured to be on that list. When I first started writing cases in 2006, I never imagined that they would find such wide acceptance in business schools across the world. Nevertheless, I have always endeavoured to write cases that not only my students at IBS, but also other students from different parts of the globe can relate to and learn from. This goes to show the wide reach and impact that ICFAI Business School has on the academic and student community worldwide through its case studies.”
The Case Research Centre has developed around 6,000 cases that are used by over 800 B-schools in more than 75 countries annually.
He added: “One has to look beyond just the choice of topics for the case and subject organisations, and cultivate a writing style that is simple, clear and relatable, thus making it easy for any student to follow the storyline and go in-depth with the insights provided in the case. My foremost guiding principle has always been to write cases that educators across the world would love to take into their classrooms.”
Some of his best cases include, ‘Netflix: Leveraging big data to predict entertainment hits’, ‘Corporate entrepreneurship and innovation at Google, Inc’, and ‘The Body Shop: Social responsibility or sustained greenwashing?’.
Other representatives
A total of 19 schools from 10 countries are represented on the list. The other best-selling authors are from internationally reputed B-schools such as Harvard Business School, IMD and INSEAD. Harvard Business School had the highest number of best-selling authors. Of the 40 authors, three were women.