Methodology for case studies in business ethics

The key idea of this chapter is that case studies are important for getting new and practical knowledge about dilemmas of business ethics in business, corporations, and other organizations. Case study analysis is based on a phenomenological and hermeneutic approach. Cases in organization are viewed as phenomena of meaning and ideas, and as texts that are open for interpretations. The case study methodology goes back to the classical and medieval philosophy of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. In modern social science research this methodology has been proposed as a generalizable scientific methodology for examining the practical life of organizations. Following the Harvard methodology of study of cases has been very useful for the study of business ethics. Many dilemmas of business ethics become possible to understand only when they are investigated based on hermeneutic readings of cases. In this sense, business ethics is a field where case study research has been modernized as a creative approach of finding the general in the particular.