DiMatteo and Maurer win National Case Study Competition

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Larry A. DiMatteo, Huber Hurst Professor of Contract Law & Legal Studies and Virginia G. Maurer, Huber Hurst Professor of Business Law & Legal Studies, won the University of Indiana—Center for International Business Education & Research—Academy of Legal Studies’ Outstanding International Case Study Award.

Their case study was entitled Choosing Values: Public-Private Relationships in a Global Economy. The case examines the concept of the fusion of good business ethics with good business, and reinforces the concept that law can be used to strategic advantage. It also serves to encourage thinking on the relationship between ethical decision making and sustainability by advancing a broadened benefit-cost analysis and using a long-term time frame for such a calculation. It also seeks to increase student skills related to a stakeholder analysis and ethical decision making, as well as simulating practical business decision-making.

The case study employs three methodologies: Independent and group projects, foundational reading requirements and independent research. The case study provides an “ethical tool kit” that advances an integrative approach to ethical decision-making.” It integrates concepts, such as utilitarianism, dominant considerations, distributive justice, human and worker rights, the importance of virtue to corporate culture, and the ethics of care, to demonstrate the practical application of ethical tools and to advance the idea that if used properly the major ethical schools of thought will arrive at similar decisions.

This case is usable in a variety of courses including law, business, political science, environmental and public policy, globalization, human rights and ethics, and is usable at the undergraduate and graduate levels.