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Cases

Searching for Cases

Case Studies related to ethics and ethical dilemmas abound. You will find them in the usual places, including textbooks on the subject and from publishing houses like HBS Press. You can find other sets of cases by searching libraries, bookstores, and Google, using author names as keywords. See the People section of this website for more ideas.

HBS Press is a rich source for case material. Check there for studies and teaching notes. On the homepage, try "Ethics" as a search term. You will see examples from specific companies and theoretical recapitulations.

Ethical Vignettes

A collection of ethical vignettes can be found in Lynne Sharp Paine's Cases in Leadership, Ethics, and Organizational Integrity: A Strategic Perspective (McGraw Hill, 1996). Similar titles are available in most business school libraries. At the GSB, you can find a collection of such texts in Jackson Library under call number HF5387.

Course Sessions and Modules

In collaboration with Scotty McLennan, Dean of Religious Life at Stanford, we have created outlines for several case-based course sessions/modules. Some examples are:

1. A Personal Reflection [ DOC 21.5KB] session.
2. A movie [ DOC 20KB] session, in which students reflect on impressions of characters' actions in "Glengarry Glen Ross," a cinematic version of the classic David Mamet play.
3. A managerial section focused on the recent problems associated with prescription pain-killers [ DOC 25.5KB].

Recent Cases

A highly publicized recent case is captured in a recent book by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, The Smartest Guys in the Room (Penguin, 2003). This is the story of the rise and fall of Enron Corp. The book is an easy read, and its character profiles are likely to appeal to MBAs.

Given today's business and regulatory climate, not a day passes without major news organizations like the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and BusinessWeek publishing a story related to business ethics. It may serve anyone setting up a course related to business ethics well to simply glance at (browse) these sources regularly as they offer straightforward accounts that are easily-digestible.