1. Press Release
For Immediate Release
Tyler Mahan
Texas State University News Service
830-832-8898
tylermahan@txstate.edu
Texas State Graduate Students Win First Place at IBE Competition
Three Texas State graduate students won two first place trophies Wednesday at the International
Business Ethics Competition in Tucson, Arizona. They won both the 30-minute and 10-minute
presentation categories at the graduate level after facing teams from England, Canada, France,
Hungary, Spain and the U.S.
After selecting their topic from any area of business ethics, each team prepared a presentation
describing the problem and proposing a solution. The Judges listened to the team’s presentation,
questioned the students and then gave the team feedback. Presentations covered the legal,
financial and ethical dimensions of the case, but special emphasis was placed on the strength of
the ethical analysis of the problem and the ethical acceptability of the solution.
Using the topic “Is That Blood on Your Shirt? Exploitation in Garment Manufacturing,” the
Texas State team constructed a hypothetical situation in which they served as ethical consultants
to GAP Inc. concerning the tragic events that occurred at the Rana Plaza, a GAP vendor, where
more than 1,000 people were killed in a building collapse in April of last year. Using what they
termed the "golden rule standard," they argued that GAP has an ethical obligation to sign the
accord on fire and building safety in Bangladesh as a step toward expanding their value
framework toward a sustainable capitalism that recognizes human rights and advances the
common good while simultaneously meeting the demands of a profit-driven business.
Shanna Schultz, Alejandro Tamez and Coleen Watson made up the team of graduate students
with Jo Ann Carson serving as team advisor. Schultz is in the masters program in communication
studies, while both Tamez and Watson are philosophy students in the master of applied
philosophy and ethics program.
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