Team of three presents top response to sub-prime lending crisis, wins college's Business Ethics Competition
May 5, 2008 - Three business management seniors won first place in the NC State College of Management’s Fourth Annual Business Ethics Case Competition held April 15. The competition is sponsored by the BB&T Leadership Development Fund and hosted by the Business Ethics Society, a student organization based in the College of Management.
Brandon Wall, Katie Stockdale and Ben Henry [left to right, with Ira R. Weiss, dean, far right] are sharing the $1,000 prize money, which they earned by presenting the best business case in response to this year’s ethics challenge regarding “The Ethics of Sub-prime Lending.”
[See complete list of winners.]
“I think I speak for all the judges in saying how impressed we were with all the teams’ preparation and presentations,” said Jerry Bowen, executive vice president, Wachovia Bank, Raleigh. “The topics addressed during the Ethics Competition are real issues business leaders are having to deal with in today's business world. Each team should be very proud of the perspective they provided on their topics as well as the solutions offered.”
Wall summarized the team’s key points, saying: “While we acknowledged that there were multiple contributing factors to the sub-prime lending situation, it was our opinion that a lack of corporate social responsibility and an unnecessary emphasis on self-interest were the two most significant precursors to the crisis.”
The team’s remedy: “We proposed an ethics management program centered on long-term customer relationships. Our program was aimed at avoiding consumer exploitation through public education of borrowing intricacies, lobbying for a governmental monitoring agency, and sufficient training of employees in regards to management’s ethical perspective,” he said.
“During our research and development of our solution I became more aware of the wide-spread effects that real world business decisions can have. All too often we read headlines and we fail to sufficiently grasp the magnitude of what it is we just read,” Wall said. “Our research opened my eyes to the prevalence and the geographic scope of the sub-prime crisis. I realize now how easy it is for corporations to overlook the long-term repercussions of profit-minded decisions.
“Business requires vision and foresight. In choosing our topic, we wanted to challenge ourselves by selecting a fairly difficult component of sub-prime lending and by doing so I can more easily understand how consumers unfamiliar with finance/business can be taken advantage of. Which is to say that as business students and professional business people, sometimes we make unfair assumptions regarding how well versed the public may or may not be about these issues,” he said.
In an earlier interview, Henry also stressed the importance of ethics in the corporate environment, and the value of the college’s Business Ethics Course as part of a business education curriculum.
“Attending the Business Ethics Competition event was extremely rewarding for me in many ways,” said Lisa Hall, director of information technology at Cisco Systems and mother of one of the participants, Somer Hall. “First, as a parent, I was incredibly proud to see my daughter and her peers demonstrate their understanding of such a complex issue. But even more amazing was how deeply they care about business ethics and their obvious passion to help financial institutions learn from mistakes made during the sub-prime lending era.
“As a business leader, I was very impressed to see how all four teams presented their case with the composure of a seasoned professional. Knowing how to organize facts, tell a story, and deliver a proposal with confidence and poise is one of the valuable skills one can have in today’s business world,” she said.
“Finally, as a member of the NC State College of Management Advisory Board, I was extremely pleased to see another example of how the college is preparing their students to be successful in the real world. It is no wonder the College of Management continues to climb in the ratings.”
First Place: Ben Henry, Katie Stockdale and Brandon Wall, all seniors in business management
Second Place: Steven Blumberg, senior, and Somer Hall, junior, both majoring in business management, sharing the $500 prize.
Third place: Jeffrey Kennedy and Sarah Johnston, both seniors in business management, sharing the $250 prize award.
Fourth place recognition: Marcello Davis and Dylan Price, freshmen business management majors.
Greg Young, associate professor of business management and advisor for the Business Ethics Society, commended Davis and Price for their initiative in participating so early in their academic career and looks forward to their involvement in the competition in the future.
Students prepared for the competition by reviewing a number of articles and reports related to the topic. The competition requires that each team includes two to five undergraduate students. The teams’ entries included an analysis of any business topic related to sub-prime lending, a persuasive justification of the importance of that topic, and a best practice ethics management plan for their topic.
Judging the teams’ presentations were:
- Jerry Bowen, executive vice president, Wachovia Bank, Raleigh
- Robert McIsaac, senior vice president and online channel manager, First Citizens Bank
- Ronald Wainwright, partner, McGladrey & Pullen, LLP
- Chris Wozencroft, director, product control, mortgages/real estate, Credit Suisse
- Erin Bergstrom, consultant, Passage Home
- Traci Pearce, business services officer, BB&T Commercial Banking.
Related link
Greg Young, associate professor of business management and faculty advisor, Business Ethics Society
Photo credit: Vicki Spake