Turning Practice into Global Recognition

How a practitioner with decades of experience—and no recent research—turned her work into a conference paper and MBA teaching case.

Context

This client, a respected practitioner in her field, was invited to submit a proposal to a major international conference.

She had:

  • Deep experience and rich case examples

  • Not conducted formal research in nearly 20 years

  • No clear idea where to start with design, data, or academic standards

She wanted to seize the opportunity without stepping away from her busy practice for months.

What we did

  • Clarified the contribution. We identified the specific question her practice could illuminate and how it fit into current debates in her field.

  • Designed a lean, rigorous study. We structured a research approach that honored real-world constraints while still satisfying scholarly expectations: clear questions, methods, and ethics.

  • Organized existing data. We helped her extract and structure the rich material she already had—cases, observations, and outcomes—so it could function as data.

  • Architected the literature review. We guided her through targeted reading and helped synthesize the relevant literature into a coherent backdrop for her work.

  • Crafted the proposal and paper. Working closely with her, we shaped a compelling proposal and then the full conference paper, ensuring it reflected her voice and practice wisdom.

  • Prepared for presentation. We refined slides and narrative so she could present the work with confidence to an international audience.

Outcomes

  • The proposal was accepted by the conference, giving her a high-visibility platform among global peers.

  • The paper attracted significant interest and was later invited as a teaching case for a top MBA program’s case collection.

  • The case and publication gave her global distinction in her niche, strengthening her website, speaker bio, and client materials with credible research outputs.

  • She gained a repeatable template for turning future practice-based insights into publishable work.

In short, we helped her convert decades of doing into **evidence, credibility, and reach—**without asking her to become a full-time academic.