CALL FOR CASES: Special Issue on Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Ethics

The Case Research Journal will publish a special issue on corporate social responsibility and business ethics, to be guest-edited by Professor Anne T. Lawrence of San Jose State University.

The deadline for submission to this special issue is December 1, 2009, for publication in 2010.

Domain of the Special Issue

The domain of the special issue is broadly defined as teaching cases in corporate social responsibility and ethics. Appropriate topics include (but are not limited to):

• Socially responsible or irresponsible actions by business firms
• Ethical or unethical behavior by individuals or organizations
• Accounting fraud
• Business law and business ethics
• Codes of ethics and ethics policies
• Conflicts of interest
• Corporate citizenship
• Corporate governance
• Corporate social responsibility in a global or comparative context
• Corrupt practices
• Crisis management
• Customer rights
• Employee rights
• Ethical and social aspects of new technologies
• Ethical aspects of corporate environmental impacts
• Ethics in accounting and finance
• Ethics in information systems
• Ethical marketing; deceptive advertising; advertising to children
• Human rights impacts of corporate behavior
• Interactions between firms and nongovernmental organizations
• International issues and ethical concerns
• Political influence by business
• Shareholder rights
• Shareholder activism; socially responsible investment
• Social and environmental auditing
• Social and environmental responsibility in supply chains
• Social entrepreneurship
• Stakeholder dialogue and engagement

Focus and Methods

For this issue, the CRJ will publish only decision or issue-focused cases based on original, primary research.

Focus: Cases should be focused on a decision, issue, or problem facing an individual, an organization, or a group of organizations. After studying the case, students should be able to put themselves into the situation and formulate and defend alternative courses of action.

Methods: Cases should be based on original, primary research. Examples of such research include (but are not limited to):

• Field research in the organization
• Interviews with key decision-makers in the organization
• Interviews with stakeholders impacted by an organizational decision, issue, or problem
• Review of primary materials, such as legal proceedings, congressional testimony, or internal company or stakeholder documents.

The CRJ does not publish cases based solely on secondary sources, such as journalistic accounts. It also does not publish fictionalized, composite, or hypothetical cases. Occasionally, the CRJ publishes papers about case writing and teaching. Such papers will be considered for this issue if they are relevant to the special topic domain.

An Instructor’s Manual (teaching note) must accompany each case submission. See the guidelines here.

Authors are encouraged (but not required) to submit cases to the North American Case Research 2009 Annual Meeting, to be held in Santa Cruz, California at the Chaminade Resort & Spa, on October 29-31, 2009. This will enable authors to receive and respond to feedback on their case prior to submission to the special issue. At the time of submission, at least one author must be a member of NACRA.

For further information regarding this issue or a potential submission, please contact:

Anne T. Lawrence, Guest Editor for the Special Issue
lawren_a@cob.sjsu.edu or (408) 924-3586

Tupper Cawsey, Editor, Case Research Journal
tcawsey@nacra.net or (519) 747-9147