University of St. Thomas MBA students tie for first place at national business ethics competition

UST's team at the Intercollegiate Business Ethics Case Competition included, left to right: Rob Bennett, Kate Grudkovska, Matt Wach,
Erin Liddy and Brian Slattery.

University of St. Thomas MBA students tie for first place at national business ethics competition

A five-member team of graduate business students from the University of St. Thomas tied for first place in their division at the 11th annual Intercollegiate Business Ethics Case Competition April 16-18 in Los Angeles.

This year's competition drew student teams from universities in Hungary and Turkey as well as two U.S. military academies and 24 other U.S. colleges and universities. The St.Thomas team tied for top honors with a team from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, in the competition's eight-team Graduate Division.

Competitors give presentations in which they analyze a business problem's legal, financial and ethical dimensions, then recommend a solution that must pass muster on all three counts. The idea of the competition is to help students see that it is possible to do business ethically as well as profitably.

Full-time UST  MBA students Rob Bennett, Kate Grudkovska, Erin Liddy, Brian Slattery and Matt Wach gave their winning presentation about the challenges organizations face when marketing credit cards to college students.

The team was selected in February at the local Ethics Case Competition sponsored by the Center for Ethical Business Cultures, St. Thomas' Opus College of Business and UnitedHealth Group. Its mentor was Dr. Kenneth Goodpaster, who holds the Koch Endowed Chair in Business Ethics at St. Thomas.

For more information, contact Ron James, president and CEO of the Center for Ethical Business Cultures, (651) 962-4120.