Jenkins MBA Students Explore MNC’s Options in Ethics Case Competition

Five teams of first-year MBA students in the college’s Jenkins Graduate School of Management were chosen from 17 teams that had entered the competition. Students in the 17 teams are all taking the Jenkins MBA program’s Business Case Competiiton course (MBA 590) in the spring 2010 semester.

Their task for the case competition course was to select, analyze and provide a method for multinational corporations to manage ethically in emerging economies. The course website provided the case facts, links to ethics management resources, and the evaluation rubric. In developing their case response, the students also drew on their experiences in their first year of studies in the Jenkins MBA program.

The first place team members – Hillary Bergmark, Gabriel Ives, Wendell Ivory and Carol Wen – chose to explore business ethics issues faced by Boeing in China. They based their solution on six steps spelled out in the research paper, “Google in China: A Manager-Friendly Heuristic Model for Resolving Cross-Cultural Ethical Conflicts,” published in 2000 in the Journal of Business Ethics.

The paper spells out a six-step decision tree process known as the HKH (Hamilton, Krause, Hill) Model, named for its authors, J. Brooke Hamilton, Stephen B. Knouse, and Vanessa Hill. The HKH model “is a practical guide that prompts managers through six questions – something that they can use in day-to-day issues,” Ivory said.

Second place went to team members Geoff Bock, Mark Kendall, Arpita Malik and Bri Tegtmeier. For their case, the team selected Eli Lilly and Company’s operations in South Africa, examining the challenging and complex ethical landscape within the country and making recommendations on possible best practices regarding ethics management programs there.

The following three teams tied for third place.

• Emily Curley, Pete Geisen, Nathan Rich and Hsiang-Lin Tseng: they proposed extending the Dairy Queen franchise into Taiwan
• Sangram Chavan, Uttam Kumar, Ragesh Rajan, and Matt Wang: they presented an ethics framework for a global soft drinks company that seeks to expand operations into the Indian market

• Derem V. DeShane, Debranette Gethers, Yao Jiang and Rahul Sharma: they examined Siemens’ approach to ethical business in the developing country Nigeria.

College’s Emphasis on Business Ethics Grows from Within

The Business Ethics Competition is just one part of the college’s commitment to ‘having ethics embedded in everything we do in the culture of the college,” said Dr. Greg Young, associate professor of ethics and strategy in the college’s Department of Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The emphasis on ethics also was embraced by students at the very start of the college’s MBA program, Young said.

“In 2002, the college’s first full-time MBA students came to orientation and heard the importance of ethics in the college,” he said. “About 15 of those students immediately looked for a way to raise the conversation about business ethics and have it embedded in the culture of their program. They started the Business Ethics Society and asked me to be their faculty advisor.” Young’s research has included a focus on risk mangement of reputation capital and he recently was on the editorial board of the Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society (Sage Publications, 2008).

That first group of MBA students also designed and developed a series of activities to raise the focus in the college on business ethics, including the annual competition as well as a proposal for an undergraduate course, Managing Ethics in Organizations, now listed as course number MIE 306.

Volunteer Judges Include New Alumna

The college’s Annual Ethics Competition brings a number of business leaders, academics, and this year, a young alumna, to the college each year to judge the students’ presentations.

Joining the more seasoned professionals this year was Somer Hall, who received her bachelor’s degree in 2009. She had served as president of the college’s Business Ethics Society while a junior in the college and placed second in the 2008 competition.

Also judging were the following members of the college’s Advisory Board:

• Robert Bird, Executive Vice President [retired], Independent Insurance Agents of NC, Inc.
• J. Lee Brown III, business administration doctoral students, Old Dominion University
• Robert E. Kushell, president, Kushell Associates, Inc.

• Ronald G..Wainwright, member, Dixon Hughes and member of the college’s Advisory Board

The annual Business Ethics Competition is sponsored by the BB&T Leadership Development Fund in the NC State College of Management.

Photo

First place team (left photo): First place team members are, left to right: Wendell Ivory, biosciences concentration; Hillary Bergmark, marketing management concentration; Gabriel Ives, financial management and supply chain management concentrations; and Carol Wen, marketing management and supply chain management concentrations.

Second place team (right photo): Second place team members are, left to right: Mark Kendall, supply chain management concentration; Arpita Malik, biosciences management and marketing management concentrations; and Geoff Bock, biosciences management concentration. Team member Bri Tegtmeier, marketing management and services management concentrations, was not available for the photo.