Written Case Competition Rules

The Society for Advancement of Management (SAM) is pleased to provide the opportunity to showcase students’ management knowledge and writing skills in our inaugural Written Case Competition.

The Written Case Competition:

  • Has three divisions – Open, Undergraduate, and Invitational
  • Is open to all Collegiate Business & Management Students
  • Provides the opportunity to compete with other students nationwide
  • Provides feedback to the competing teams
  • Provides certificates of participation to all team members
  • Gives recognition in SAM Advanced Management Journal to the winning teams and universities

The written case competition provides competitors and institutions the opportunity to submit a written executive summary on the case materials that highlights the key points of the team’s solution(s) for the case study. All summaries will be judged and scored in advance of the on site event by a panel of judges. Additional rules are as follows:

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Each team submitting a Written Case Study must do so by March 13, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. via email to [email protected].

WRITTEN CASE COMPETITION RULES
Violating any of the following rules will disqualify the team.

  1. Each college or university is welcome to submit a team of up to 5 members in each division. The minimum size for a team competition is 2 students.

Invitational Division: Students pursuing a degree within the first 60 credit hours or an associates degree or meets other eligibility requirements established by the competitions committee.
Undergraduate Division: Students pursuing a bachelor’s degree or any lower degree if all other eligibility requirements are met.
Open Division: Students pursuing a master’s degree or any lower degree if all other eligibility requirements are met.

2. Each team member must register for the entire conference and pay the fees outlined in the conference material.
Because we recognize that emergencies arise, substitution will be permitted if the sam headquarters and case competition director are notified as soon as the substitution is made and the substitute meets all other eligibility requirements.

3. The competitions committee will annually review the teams entered in a division in order for SAM to certify competition and award prizes in that division.

4. Student teams agree that they will not seek outside help from any source after receiving the case. It is not acceptable to ask specific or general questions related to the case of anyone, or to have anyone read or provide feedback on the written work. The presenting team is charged with doing its own work on the case with no assistance from anyone not on the team. It is NOT permissible to contact the case authors.

5. Papers submitted will adhere to the following formatting and rules:

– No fewer than 5 or more than 10 double-spaced pages, not including a cover page, references, tables, figures, or appendices.
– Be submitted in both Word and PDF formats. (This is to ensure the integrity of any supplemental figures, tables, etc.)
– Have a cover page with the College Name, Competitor Names, and individual email addresses listed on the front page.
– Follow standard APA Formatting (excluding the cover) throughout the pages. All information outside of the provided case materials must be cited, any information cited from the case materials does not need to be cited.
– All pages must use a standard 12 pt font, either Times, Calibri or Courier and have standard 1 inch margins.

6. By agreeing to participate in the Written Case Competition, each team is also agreeing to have its work published by SAM and release all rights (intellectual and copyright) to SAM.