Five Saint Anselm College students participated in the 2022 International Business Ethics Case Competition (IBECC) in April. IBECC is a collegiate competition where teams of 3-5 students present the ethical, legal, and financial dimensions of a business ethics case study. The team acts as an internal or external consultant brought in by a company to address an issue.
The Saint Anselm College team was composed of Natalie Bender ’23 (Great Books/Music), Erin Doyle ’25 (Psychology), Anders Larson ’23 (Philosophy), Kathleen McCarthy ’22 (English/Theology), and Catherine Roberge ’24 (Biology).
In IBECC, teams present in three rounds. The first is a 25-minute presentation that addresses the ethical, legal, and financial dimensions of their case. The second is 10-minutes long and focuses solely on the ethical dimensions. The third, a 90-second elevator pitch, has a member of the team pretend they are an employee in the lunchroom at the company, trying to get coworkers to care about the issue.
“I found the process of writing our arguments and assembling our slides, considering problems from ethical, financial, and legal points of view, was challenging yet intellectually broadening,” says Anders Larson ‘23, captain of the Saint Anselm College team.
The team argued that Twitter’s algorithms create unethical echo chambers, where users only see content that aligns with their views. They urged the judges, who acted as top Twitter executives, to change the algorithms slightly to show users more content that might offer different viewpoints.
For Kathleen McCarthy ‘22, her favorite part of the competition was interacting with the judges. She says, “They gave such helpful feedback and advice for future presentations. They are each distinguished members of their fields and they care so much about helping young people become passionate about upholding ethical standards in business.” Business leaders, lawyers, and other distinguished guests serve as judges.
The Saint Anselm College team won first place in their division for the 25-minute and 10-minute presentations, and second place in the 90-second one. Competitors included Fordham University and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.