In May 1976, a committee made up of Pierre Laurin, then director of HEC Montréal, Pierre Dionne, administrative director, Jean-Denis Duquette, secretary-general, and Jean-Marie Toulouse, head of the newly created “Centrale de cas,” defined the following mandate for the Centrale: “to collect all of the cases” in circulation at the School, “to clarify copyright issues,” and to establish “policies governing the sale and exchange of HEC Montréal cases.”
The Centrale de cas was very active during the first six years following its inception, from 1976 to 1982. After that, it settled into its normal cruising speed until 1987, when then director Jean Guertin decided that new administrative and structural measures were necessary to allow the Centrale to keep pace with advances in information technology. The resulting “Centrale de cas et de documents pédagogiques” was placed under the auspices of the School’s Research Office and equipped with more modern word processing tools. In addition to assuming responsibility for managing reproduction, distribution and translation rights, the Centrale adopted official style guidelines and, in collaboration with the School’s Quality Communication Centre, Public Relations Department and graphics services, published a Style Guide for Cases and Teaching Notes for the benefit of case writers and departmental secretaries. At the same time, it began to offer editing services. A catalogue of cases and teaching notes was compiled and made available to professors and researchers at institutions of higher learning throughout the international Francophone community.
From 1987 to 1994, the Centrale was also responsible for selling cases to external clients and purchasing documents for use by the School’s professors. The initial core staff was expanded to seven employees. However, in 1994, the Centrale fell victim to deficit-reduction measures introduced by the government. These measures included drastic cuts to university budgets, which forced HEC Montréal to slash the Centrale’s activities. Responsibility for the sale of cases was transferred to the School’s university bookstore and activities related to the management of the case collection were reduced to the bare minimum and entrusted to an administrative unit. The activities of Éditions de cas HEC, which was placed under the responsibility of the Research Department, were limited to overseeing management of the existing case collection, while ensuring minimal consulting and revision services to professors seeking those services.
Things took a new turn starting in the fall of 1999, when the Director of HEC Montréal, Jean-Marie Toulouse, initiated a reflection on the role of the case method as a teaching and research tool in the context of a leading academic and professional institution of higher learning. He commissioned Laurent Lapierre, a professor specializing in organizational management, to study the pertinence of setting up an administrative unit that would offer services to professors interested in the case method. In particular, Jean-Marie Toulouse encouraged him to take into account the new technological context and electronic tools available to students and professors at the School.
On October 27, 1999, the Director of the School announced the creation of the new HEC Montréal Centre for Case Studies, which was given the mandate to promote the production, dissemination and archiving of quality cases, and to raise awareness about the value of the case method as a research and pedagogical tool for the transfer of knowledge and the acquisition of professional skills.
