25 Feb 2019

INSEAD professor’s Uber case study wins the ‘Ethics and Social Responsibility’ category in The Case Centre’s Awards and Competitions 2019

Awards , Smith , The Case Centre

N. Craig Smith, the INSEAD Chaired Professor of Ethics and Corporate Responsibility, won the ‘Ethics and Social Responsibility’ category in The Case Centre’s Awards and Competitions. The winning case was “Uber and the Ethics of Sharing: Exploring the Societal Promises and Responsibilities of the Sharing Economy”. Professor Smith is the third-time award winner in this category.

“Congratulations to Craig for his ongoing outstanding achievements in case writing,” says Ziv Carmon, Dean of Research at INSEAD. “We are pleased that our faculty has received great recognition for producing world-class teaching materials and cases. Recently, 13 INSEAD cases have been listed among The Case Centre’s best sellers in 2018, highlighting INSEAD’s research excellence that is both relevant and rigorous.”

Professor Smith, expressing his delight at receiving the award for the third time, says that, “The three cases which won the Ethics and Social Responsibility category have each been for cases that tackle significant current issues -- labour rights in the supply chain (Walmart), access to essential medicines (GSK) -- and now the ethics and responsibilities of the new digital economy businesses such as Uber. So, I think they have been timely and resonated well with faculty and student interests.”

The case is co- authored with Erin McCormick, a case writer at INSEAD. Their case explores the changes fashioned by the 'sharing economy'. It examines the innovations and controversies surrounding Uber and provides a unique overview of the challenges posed by new business models which use the internet to link individual providers of goods and services to customers.

“Unlike many of the other cases out there on Uber, this case focuses explicitly on how the business has grown from an ethics and social responsibility perspective, particularly in its social and environmental impacts. It also provides ample scope for generalisation beyond the one company, asking fundamental questions about the extent to which digital platforms like Uber, Airbnb or Facebook have the same responsibilities as the traditional businesses they are replacing”, says Smith.