Most of us know WACRA for its academic endeavours, hovering around sharing experiences of case method research and application through conferences symposiums, publications, etc. But for Indian institute of Management Lucknow (IIML) and me, it has been an experience of a very different order; almost an exercise of organisation develop-ment.

I attended WACRA ‘93 conference at Bratislava, Slovakia, to discuss the case study I had prepared in cooperation with Dr. Manel Peiro of ESADE, Barcelona. Before proceeding for the Conference, I checked with some of my academic acquaintances in three different business schools as to what they felt about holding WACRA conference in this part of the globe. They were quite enthusiastic. Accordingly I made a proposal to Dr. Hans Klein during the Conference, which he enthusiastically supported. I was asked to provide certain details regarding infrastructure, cost etc. for holding the conference in India. The Conference could not fructify (perhaps I underestimated the task) But many things came out while trying to do so, which have contributed a lot more to us. I count them chronologically.

When I returned to India I wondered if IIML was asked to assume the responsibility of organising the conference, what will be it’s own academic contribution. Case writing by faculty members had been at a low ebb here. I therefore, explored the possibility of case writing with the final year MBA students of our Institute, who had been given field projects of analysing corporate strategy of different types of organisations as a part of Strategic Management (SM) course. Out of 10 group, eight (comprising almost 40% of batch size) responded positively. I extended their projects to the 2nd term Strategic Management course too, by the end of which they finished writing 8 cases (1). A record of a sort indeed. Student case writing had taken place for the first time at this Institute. In the third term, we organised a workshop, the first management development programme at IIML on Strategic Management (2), which helped in conduction of the trial run of the cases. The concerned organisations were then approached for clearance for publication. 6 out of the 8 of them gave permission for publication, which was an all time high record at the Institute.

This was not all. The Institute did not have any regular system of registration of course material. The completion of so many cases encouraged us to start that process. Some other faculty members also joined to contribute the cases developed by them and the first compendium of cases under the title "IIML Case Series" was released (3) on the day of convocation by the Chief Guest, Hon’ble Minister of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

What was more surprising was a tentative finding that the contributing students on the whole felt that they had learnt as much from the case writing as from the project work or from the class discussions. The findings lead to a paper on "Case Writing as a Pedagogical Tool for MBA students" (4), which was accepted for WACRA ’94 conference but could not be presented on account of my inability to attend the conference. It was later presented in the Annual Conference of Association of Indian Management Schools.

Alongside talking to the students for case writing, a letter was sent to all the management schools of India and SAARC countries, to asses their interest in WACRA conference in India and also to estimate the number of faculty members, who were using case method pedagogy. This in, itself, turned out to be an interesting survey and culminated into a paper (5).

Things did not stop here. The release of IIML Case Series inspired me to collect, for my own records, a copy of various case studies that had been developed, either by me alone or jointly, or under my guidance. When the cases were arranged topic-wise on the conceptual framework for SM provided by Jauch & Glueck, it was observed that this unique set of 23 tested and tried out cases (developed from field data and in diverse settings), explained the entire strategic management framework. Some of my faculty colleagues as well as my teachers (who were Directors in leading management schools), felt that it would be a unique contribution to a large number of Indian Management Schools, who were starved of case studies for conducting strategic management courses, and impressed upon it’s publication. All India Management Association, which conducts a distance education programme, too, pleaded for it. Finally, it culminated into a Case Book on Strategic Management in 1996 January (6), perhaps the first case book in India including test and tried out cases for teaching and training on Strategic Management. The book has been used as programme material for Management Development Programme on Strategic Management here for four years, besides being used as a course material in management schools of the country.

Publication of the Case Book lead to IIML launching a week-long, 30 contact hours, programme for management teachers on "How to launch a Strategic Management Course" , in January 1996. It was the first Management Teachers Programme at IIML (7) and was attended by delegates from 29 different management schools in 20 different states of India and included several professors, head of departments and some directors of business schools.

The enthusiasm of delegates far exceeded our expectation. They came to class at 9.00 a.m., worked up to 6.00 p.m., They worked even at night and did not murmur for anything. Indeed, at the end of the Conference they felt that there was a need for meetings like this on a regular basis and asked IIML to assume responsibility of launching a professional "Strategic Management Forum". They are also desired that one year thence, they should meet again, in the first conference of the "Strategic Management Forum". Some of them also desired that we should prepare an instructors’ manual for the Case book on Strategic Management.

This was too tall a order for us, we thought, to mobilize the leaders for starting the SM movement in the country. However, it provided an opportunity to start the process of academic collaboration among SM professionals in India. The Director of the Institute expedited completion of hostels, dining hall facilities that were under construction, and the 1st Conference at IIML was held (8) from 1- 27-29, 1997.

With the sustained efforts of one year, the professional body "Strategic Management Forum" was formed (9), just a week before the Conference and exactly a year after the teachers’ programme, which brought together a large number of academicians associated with teaching and training of strategic management. The collabo-ration is now blooming. The second conference is scheduled to be held during May 27-29 1999, in south, at the beautiful campus of Indian Institution of Management, Bangalore, one of the six IIMs established by the Government of India, with active co-operation from other IIMs and Schools of Management. The Forum has, thus, become a truly National Forum, owned by professionals from all parts of the country.

This was not all. I spent one full year preparing for the instructors’ manual and realised that it was lot more difficult to prepare an instructors’ guide to facilitate conduction of the cases effectively, and that perhaps one can’t finish writing a good case without writing instructors’ note at an intermediate stage, something that WACRA taught me and my students realised well before me, to come to conclusion that the case writing could perhaps be a powerful pedago-gical tool for management education. The manual was finished and released during the Conference (10). It perhaps remains the first instructors’ manual on Strategic Management Cases prepared in India, till date.

For us WACRA is, thus, more than what typically people may be knowing it for. It is a plant which is still growing. My sincere thanks to WACRA and Hans who enabled us to draw benefits in so many ways.

*Dr.  Krishna Kumar is Professor of Strategic Management and Dean (Academic Affairs) at the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow