Undergraduate Business Students Place Fourth in Ethics Case Competition

Two undergraduate students at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business recently placed fourth in the Seventh Annual Eller Ethics Case Competition, held at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona.

Seniors Matt McKenna and Michelle Fares advanced through the first two rounds, competing with 26 other teams, to arrive in the final round. There, they presented their analysis of the case and were awarded fourth place after facing strong competition from the University of Texas (Austin), University of Southern California, and Elon University. Professor George Brenkert served as the team’s faculty advisor.

“As a community, we are proud of Matt and Michelle for their accomplishments at the case competition,” said Norean Sharpe, undergraduate dean at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. “Through an emphasis on leadership and ethics, our curriculum prepares students to work through difficult issues that they may encounter in the workplace.”

For the case competition, students were asked to examine a fictional automobile company based in India that has produced the lowest priced vehicle in the world. Among the points they were charged with evaluating were the advantages the vehicle has for helping lower socio-economic groups find upward mobility, as well as the impact millions of new cars would have on petroleum consumption, air pollution, and global climate problems.

The students were charged with identifying stakeholders and financial, legal, and philosophical considerations and offering recommendations on how to proceed. The teams were evaluated by a panel of judges on the depth of their analyses, persuasiveness of their arguments, and how well their recommendations addressed both ethical and practical issues in a business context.