Skip to main content

MBA Case Competition Focuses on Managing Ethically in Emerging Markets

“We created this course because we wanted our students to have the opportunity to take all that they learned from their first year – which includes a lot of theory, finance and marketing – and apply it to a real world problem,” said Steve Allen, associate dean of the Jenkins Graduate School of Management and research in the NC State College of Management.

“It is important for them to go beyond the conventional case studies and deal with a real situation that businesses are facing today,” Allen said.

The problem for this spring’s case competition is: What is your strategic approach to managing ethically in emerging economies? The teams are being challenged to recommend an Ethics Management Program that will enable a multinational company (MNC) to enter the emerging market and manage its operations ethically, providing sufficient detail that personnel will know what to do in specific instances, as defined in the case guidelines.

“In their first semester here, our MBA students participate in a global strategy simulation game during a one-hour course that exposes them to the issues faced by global companies in today’s environment,” Allen said. “Now that they are in their last five weeks of their first semester, they are in a position to take on a much more challenging case, and to compete in teams against their fellow class members.”

The competition will take place from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. on April 22 in the College of Management’s E.C. Hunt Board Room, 3220 Nelson Hall.

The top three teams will receive a cash prize, and the fourth team will receive honorable mention. The case competition is being coordinated by the Ethics Society, a student organization in the College of Management, and faculty advisor Dr. Greg Young, associate professor in the Department of Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.