More than 25 Penn State Smeal College of Business undergraduates recently confronted the business, ethical and social implications of unmanned aerial vehicles as part of the college’s first Ethics in the Workplace Case Competition.
The competition’s five-judge panel declared Carley Belsterling, Casey Connor, Christina Li and Chris McFalls the winners after three rounds of competition on April 8 in the Business Building. Each student won $500 and the team earned the right to represent Smeal in the Annual Collegiate Ethics Case Competition in October at the University of Arizona.
The Ethics in the Workplace case focused on a company that is the world leader in producing drones. Teams were instructed to assume the roles of a consultant hired to assess how the company can responsibly serve the future civilian drone market in the United States while considering the myriad regulatory issues.
“Through this case competition, we hoped to provide students with the opportunity to examine current ethical challenges in business, develop their ethical decision-making skills, and enhance their communication skills,” said Smeal Director of Honor and Integrity Jennifer Eury.
For consideration for participation in the competition, each team had to submit three recommendations for fostering courage among students to help uphold the Smeal Honor Code, including reporting improper actions to the appropriate contact person or office. Those initial teams were comprised of more than 60 students. Submissions were evaluated on the creativity, practicality, and persuasiveness of the recommendations. A selection committee chose seven teams to participate in the recent competition.
The second-place team — Levi Albright, Brendan Ott, Luke Proudfoot and Harrison Rentschler — earned $1,500. The third-place team of Helene Chouljian, Alexander Kohlb, Nikita Korobkin and Ben Moshnyager earned $1,000.
“We wanted to engage a wide range of students in a dialogue about ethics in the workplace,” Eury said. “This competition provided us with an opportunity to engage more than 60 students, promote ethical behavior in business, and identify a team to represent the college at an international level.”
EY, Kohl’s, RSM, and TE Connectivity sponsored the competition. Competition judges included Carl Bour, district manager at Kohl’s; Nitin Khanna, business technology leader at RSM; Mike Poerksen, Americas tax campus recruiting leader at EY; Christine Stickler, vice president and chief compliance officer at TE Connectivity; and Linda Trevino, Smeal professor of organizational behavior and ethics.
About integrity at SmealIntegrity and ethical behavior are fundamental to the Smeal College of Business culture. These values underscore who we are and what we do as a leading business school community, both in and out of the classroom. The college's foundation of honor and integrity lies in the Honor Code, drafted in partnership with MBA students in 2006 and adopted by undergraduates in 2007. Integrity and ethical behavior are infused into courses across the Smeal curriculum, and the G. Albert Shoemaker Program in Business Ethics supports ethics lectures and related scholarly research. For more information on integrity at Smeal, visit www.smeal.psu.edu/integrity.