Anne T Lawrence won the Outstanding Contribution to the Case Method Award at The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2022. #CaseAwards2022
Anne T Lawrence is the winner of the Outstanding Contribution to the Case Method Award 2022. Anne is Chair of the Board at the Case Research Foundation, and Professor Emerita at the Lucas College and Graduate School of Business, San Jose State University.

Commitment to the case method community
Anne T Lawrence is the Founder and Chair of the Board of the Case Research Foundation and Professor of Management (Emerita) at Lucas College and Graduate School of Business, San José State University.
Over the past 30 years Anne has led the case research, writing, and teaching community by publishing over 30 quality cases that have made a real impact on management education globally. In addition, Anne has served the case method community in numerous leadership, training and mentorship roles, is an award-winning case writer and teacher, and has established the Case Research Foundation and Paul R Lawrence Fellowship Programme.
Founder of the Case Research Foundation
With the support of the Board of the North American Case Research Association (NACRA), Anne founded the Case Research Foundation in 2014.
The foundation runs the Paul R Lawrence Fellowship Programme which has, since 2015, awarded 63 fellowships to early-career scholars across the world. Fellows receive training in case writing, research, and teaching at the NACRA annual meeting, where they are also paired with senior mentors and participate in case discussion roundtables.
Leading at NACRA
Anne has served in a full range of leadership roles at NACRA, including President, Programme Chair, and President of the Advisory Council. Her most significant contribution in the NACRA leadership was negotiating contracts with higher education publishers to provide income to NACRA case authors. She has also served as President of NACRA’s regional affiliate, the Western Casewriters Association.
Serial prizewinner
Anne has won a host of case writing and teaching awards.
In case writing, Anne received the prestigious Curtis E Tate Award for Outstanding Case of the Year in 1998, 2009 and 2015. Other writing awards include winning the AOM Dark Side Case Competition in 2007, the Emerson Award in 2003 for Outstanding Case in Business Ethics, and the Philip D Cooper Award in 1999 for Outstanding Case in Health Care.
Furthermore, after collecting a number of teaching prizes at San José State, Anne claimed the University’s highest teaching honour in 2005 when she was named Outstanding Professor of the Year.
Anne was made a NACRA Fellow in 2005 and Distinguished Contributor in 2014, awarded by NACRA for life-long achievement in case writing, research, and teaching.
Following in her father’s footsteps
Anne said: “I am deeply grateful to The Case Centre for selecting me for the 2022 Outstanding Contribution to the Case Method Award. I greatly admire the former recipients of this award and I am honoured to be in their company.
“I have been fascinated by cases since childhood. My father, Paul R Lawrence, was a case teacher and writer at Harvard Business School. When I was growing up, the routine in my family was that my mother would cook dinner and my father would clean up. I liked to sit on a tall stool by the kitchen sink after dinner and listen to my dad tell stories. Only much later did I realise that his stories were often just simplified versions of cases he was writing or teaching.
“I liked this routine so much that when I was 12, my birthday wish was to have my father teach ‘stories’ to me and my friends. He gamely obliged, taking over an empty classroom on a Saturday morning to teach a case (it was about a murder!) to a bunch of pre-adolescent schoolgirls. The scene was deemed so unusual that the local newspaper wrote a human-interest story on it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I went on to become a business school professor and writer and teacher of cases myself - and an advocate for the case method.”

Power of the case method
Anne added: “Humans have always learned from stories, since before the advent of written language. I believe there is no better method of learning how to become an effective contributor to organisational life than to engage actively with real-world problems and issues. My most satisfying moments as a teacher have been exploring the complexity of a case with my students.”
Mentoring the next generation
Anne concluded: “I am most proud of my mentorship of early-career case teachers, writers, and researchers.
“In 2014, with the support of the board of the North American Case Research Association (NACRA), I founded the Case Research Foundation (CRF). Since then, the CRF has provided 63 Paul R Lawrence Fellowships, named in honor of my father, to doctoral students and early-career faculty members from two dozen or so nations across the world. The fellowships enable recipients to attend the annual meeting of NACRA, where they are paired with senior mentors, receive special training in case writing and research, and participate in case roundtables.
“It gives me great satisfaction to help these promising scholars find their distinct voices to tell stories that will resonate with students.”
Hear about Anne's case method impact.
“My participation in the Paul R Lawrence programme in 2015 had a substantial and positive impact on my professional career.
“Anne’s direct mentorship and training, along with the support and guidance of case method scholars that she established, has resulted in a step-change in my case writing and publications.
“She inspired me to play a larger role in the North American Case Research Association (NACRA), and has informed my work as Editor-in-Chief of Emerald Publishing’s Emerging Market Case Studies Collection, which led to me receiving the University of San Francisco’s Sarlo Prize Award in 2017 for excellence in teaching. It also resulted in me joining the Board of the Case Research Foundation.
“Over the past 30 years Anne has worked tirelessly with students, colleagues, institutions, and publishers to place the case method at the centre of management education, and she epitomises an outstanding contributor to the case method.”
“Anne is a very deserving winner of this award, having been a strong advocate of the case method and its community for three decades.
“Whether it’s writing award-winning cases, inspiring through her case teaching, leading at NACRA, or mentoring and training fellows via the Case Research Foundation she founded, Anne’s commitment to the case method is far-reaching.
“The committee is honoured to give this award to Anne, who has made an undoubted impact in a long and successful career.”
The recipient
Anne T Lawrence is the winner of the Outstanding Contribution to the Case Method Award 2022. Anne is Chair of the Board at the Case Research Foundation, and Professor Emerita at the Lucas College and Graduate School of Business, San Jose State University.

Commitment to the case method community
Anne T Lawrence is the Founder and Chair of the Board of the Case Research Foundation and Professor of Management (Emerita) at Lucas College and Graduate School of Business, San José State University.
Over the past 30 years Anne has led the case research, writing, and teaching community by publishing over 30 quality cases that have made a real impact on management education globally. In addition, Anne has served the case method community in numerous leadership, training and mentorship roles, is an award-winning case writer and teacher, and has established the Case Research Foundation and Paul R Lawrence Fellowship Programme.
Founder of the Case Research Foundation
With the support of the Board of the North American Case Research Association (NACRA), Anne founded the Case Research Foundation in 2014.
The foundation runs the Paul R Lawrence Fellowship Programme which has, since 2015, awarded 63 fellowships to early-career scholars across the world. Fellows receive training in case writing, research, and teaching at the NACRA annual meeting, where they are also paired with senior mentors and participate in case discussion roundtables.
Leading at NACRA
Anne has served in a full range of leadership roles at NACRA, including President, Programme Chair, and President of the Advisory Council. Her most significant contribution in the NACRA leadership was negotiating contracts with higher education publishers to provide income to NACRA case authors. She has also served as President of NACRA’s regional affiliate, the Western Casewriters Association.
Serial prizewinner
Anne has won a host of case writing and teaching awards.
In case writing, Anne received the prestigious Curtis E Tate Award for Outstanding Case of the Year in 1998, 2009 and 2015. Other writing awards include winning the AOM Dark Side Case Competition in 2007, the Emerson Award in 2003 for Outstanding Case in Business Ethics, and the Philip D Cooper Award in 1999 for Outstanding Case in Health Care.
Furthermore, after collecting a number of teaching prizes at San José State, Anne claimed the University’s highest teaching honour in 2005 when she was named Outstanding Professor of the Year.
Anne was made a NACRA Fellow in 2005 and Distinguished Contributor in 2014, awarded by NACRA for life-long achievement in case writing, research, and teaching.
Hear from Anne
Following in her father’s footsteps
Anne said: “I am deeply grateful to The Case Centre for selecting me for the 2022 Outstanding Contribution to the Case Method Award. I greatly admire the former recipients of this award and I am honoured to be in their company.
“I have been fascinated by cases since childhood. My father, Paul R Lawrence, was a case teacher and writer at Harvard Business School. When I was growing up, the routine in my family was that my mother would cook dinner and my father would clean up. I liked to sit on a tall stool by the kitchen sink after dinner and listen to my dad tell stories. Only much later did I realise that his stories were often just simplified versions of cases he was writing or teaching.
“I liked this routine so much that when I was 12, my birthday wish was to have my father teach ‘stories’ to me and my friends. He gamely obliged, taking over an empty classroom on a Saturday morning to teach a case (it was about a murder!) to a bunch of pre-adolescent schoolgirls. The scene was deemed so unusual that the local newspaper wrote a human-interest story on it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I went on to become a business school professor and writer and teacher of cases myself - and an advocate for the case method.”

Power of the case method
Anne added: “Humans have always learned from stories, since before the advent of written language. I believe there is no better method of learning how to become an effective contributor to organisational life than to engage actively with real-world problems and issues. My most satisfying moments as a teacher have been exploring the complexity of a case with my students.”
Mentoring the next generation
Anne concluded: “I am most proud of my mentorship of early-career case teachers, writers, and researchers.
“In 2014, with the support of the board of the North American Case Research Association (NACRA), I founded the Case Research Foundation (CRF). Since then, the CRF has provided 63 Paul R Lawrence Fellowships, named in honor of my father, to doctoral students and early-career faculty members from two dozen or so nations across the world. The fellowships enable recipients to attend the annual meeting of NACRA, where they are paired with senior mentors, receive special training in case writing and research, and participate in case roundtables.
“It gives me great satisfaction to help these promising scholars find their distinct voices to tell stories that will resonate with students.”
Testimonials
Hear about Anne's case method impact.
“My participation in the Paul R Lawrence programme in 2015 had a substantial and positive impact on my professional career.
“Anne’s direct mentorship and training, along with the support and guidance of case method scholars that she established, has resulted in a step-change in my case writing and publications.
“She inspired me to play a larger role in the North American Case Research Association (NACRA), and has informed my work as Editor-in-Chief of Emerald Publishing’s Emerging Market Case Studies Collection, which led to me receiving the University of San Francisco’s Sarlo Prize Award in 2017 for excellence in teaching. It also resulted in me joining the Board of the Case Research Foundation.
“Over the past 30 years Anne has worked tirelessly with students, colleagues, institutions, and publishers to place the case method at the centre of management education, and she epitomises an outstanding contributor to the case method.”
“Anne is a very deserving winner of this award, having been a strong advocate of the case method and its community for three decades.
“Whether it’s writing award-winning cases, inspiring through her case teaching, leading at NACRA, or mentoring and training fellows via the Case Research Foundation she founded, Anne’s commitment to the case method is far-reaching.
“The committee is honoured to give this award to Anne, who has made an undoubted impact in a long and successful career.”