Students present identity theft solutions in annual Ethics Competition

April 11, 2006 - Each year, 300,000 North Carolinians and almost 10 million people nationwide have their identities stolen. “This is an urgent issue,” said Greg Young, associate professor of business management at NC State’s College of Management.

“Managers are grappling with how to responsibly safeguard personal data and protect us from identity theft, and the problem is bigger in the United States than anywhere else in the world,” he said.

It became a personal problem for some of the students in his business ethics class (BUS495B). "As we worked on this topic during the semester, three of us in class had our identities stolen,” he said.

The students had a chance to analyze the problem and come up with ways to manage it as they prepared for the college's second annual Business Ethics Competition. It's theme this year was: “The Identity Theft Problem - Corporate Social Responsibility and Safeguarding Personal Data.” The competition is managed each year by the college’s Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative led by Young. It was sponsored this year by the BB&T Leadership Fund and by the Business Ethics Society, an NC State student organization.

Eleven teams of students from the college’s business ethics class submitted their written analyses of a business ethics case for judging by David Hasler, director of business planning and analysis for the Body Shop of the Americas; Janet Hankins, president of KJAS, Inc., an information technology provider of system solutions whose business includes the Ethical Advocate, a regulatory compliant risk management system; and Young.

"I know the teams put in a lot of hard work to prepare their ethics management plans,” Young said. "The judges had a difficult task to select just five teams for the semi-final round of competition, and an even more difficult challenge to decide on the order of highest quality in the final round."

The judges made their awards based on the students’ communication skills and their plans’ feasibility to implement a principled organizational culture to safeguard personal data and respond to society’s identity theft concerns.

Winners of the College of Management’s Second Annual Business Ethics Case Competition were announced Monday afternoon.

"They all were so good, it would be unethical not to give extra credit toward all their class grades," said Young. The top three teams also shared a total of $1,000 in cash prizes. [Photo cutline below.]

Beyond the prizes and extra credit, students said the competition provided a chance for them to test their analytical and presentation skills. “It gave me a chance to demonstrate how much work I put into this and that I know how important this is,” said Amanda Middlebrooks, senior accounting major.

Her hard work paid off: she and her team received first place for their presentation and analysis. Sharing the $500 first place prize money are Middlebrooks; Crystal Goodyear, senior in accounting; and Krista McNeil and Natalie Parsons, both juniors in business management.

Parsons said she was motivated to participate in the competition when she learned that she would be presenting to a panel of judges that included senior executives.

“As a finance major, I will be presenting throughout my career,” she said. The competition gave her a chance to get the ‘first-time jitters’ out of the way.

Second place went to Alan Berg, Ryan Wheelan, and Erin Bergstrom, all business management seniors, and Heather Medford, a junior in accounting. They are sharing the $350 prize. Winning third place, with a $150 total prize, were juniors Kristen Mellette and Marguerite Pressley.

Receiving Certifications of Recognition for Outstanding Accomplishment were Crystal Jackson, senior, and Otis Ricks, Cassandra Adams, David Eckel, Timothy Hines, Charles Spivey, and Stephen Watkins, juniors.

Ira R. Weiss, dean of the college and a champion of business ethics as a core skill in management education, stressed the role of ethical leadership in managerial effectiveness in his keynote remarks at the start of the final presentations. Then the competition got down to an exciting and fast-paced battle, Young said.

"Our students just impressed the heck out of the business executives, and the competition started valuable career-oriented relationships based on principled management that our Wolfpack community can be proud of,” he said. "Future students in the college will benefit greatly from what our students did, and we already started planning on how to build on their achievements for next year's Business Ethics Case Competition.”

Photo cutline

The winning team members are, left to right: Natalie Parsons, Crystal Goodyear, Krista McNeil and Amanda Midlebrooks. Judges for the ethics competition were David Hasler, director of buisness planning and analysis for the Body Shop of the Americas, left, back row and Janet Hankins, president of KJAS, Inc., and Greg Young, professor of business management, right.