GSM Competition Tests Real-Life Skills
The Net Impact Case Competition tested the analysis and problem-solving skills of GSM students
Graduate School of Management students Sam Booth (GSM’09), Gertjan Flikweert (GSM’09), Pauline Jeong (GSM’09), and Jillian Standish (GSM’09) took first place this month at the 13th Annual Net Impact Case Competition with their analysis on corporate social responsibility planning.
Net Impact is an international nonprofit organization with collegiate and professional chapters that aims to “make a positive impact on society by growing and strengthening a community of new leaders who use business to improve the world.”
Nine GSM teams had two weeks to prepare a 10-minute presentation on a case study focusing on a retail business that had created a corporate affairs department (CAD) to oversee corporate social responsibility issues. Each team had to determined how the CAD director should offer “analysis-based proposals” on which programs to support and which to discontinue and suggest ways to motivate department directors to encourage participation in such programs.
The teams were judged by a panel of industry and academic judges on their creativity, the thoroughness of their analysis, and the way they addressed the problem and argued their points. The top teams won cash prizes.
The winning team’s recommendations included tracking and measuring the company’s social return on investment and expanding the company’s scholarship and recycling programs.
“I was really impressed with the creativity and the variety and approaches the different teams took to resolving the situation,” says Kristina Munger (GSM’09), who helped to organize the event.
Rebecca McNamara can be reached at ramc@bu.edu.
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