Smeal Team Earns Third Place In MBA Case Competition
A team of second-year MBA students from Penn State's Smeal College of Business placed third in the National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) Case Competition at the organization's 27th annual conference in San Diego this month.
Smeal Team Earns Third Place In MBA Case Competition
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (October 26, 2005) – A team of second-year MBA students from Penn State's Smeal College of Business placed third in the National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) Case Competition at the organization's 27th annual conference in San Diego this month.
The competition's sponsor, DaimlerChrysler, challenged 26 teams from around the world with developing a strategy that would enable the company to enter China's automobile market. Each team presented its solution to DaimlerChrysler executives who chose Smeal's team of Janelle C. McIntyre, Maimuna Mijindadi, and Robert Watson as the third-place winner of this year's contest. After the final round of competition, the judges presented the team with their trophies and $8,000 in scholarship funds.
Team members received the case from DaimlerChrysler in mid-September, providing only a few weeks to complete background research, fully design their plan, and prepare themselves to defend it.
"We spent hours researching the automobile industry to make sure we could answer the tough questions we would have to face at the competition," says Mijindadi. "Placing in this competition is the ultimate reward for all our hard work."
Several Smeal faculty members, including Andy Gustafson, Terry Harrison, Ralph Oliva, and Dennis Gioia, assisted the students in their preparation.
"Our success is due in large part to the preparation we received during our communications course, which enabled us to create an effective presentation," says McIntyre. The students were also judged on their problem-solving skills, analytical proficiency, and general knowledge of the subject matter.
NBMBAA established its case competition in 1992 to increase student participation at its annual conference and to provide an additional avenue for connecting its corporate partners with students. DaimlerChrysler has been the sole sponsor since 1995, presenting the students with real-life, timely challenges.
Smeal MBA students Janelle McIntyre, Maimuna Mijindadi, and Robert Watson pose with DaimlerChrysler executives after placing third in the NBMBAA Case Competition in San Diego.
REPORTERS & EDITORS: For more information, please contact Wyatt DuBois in the Smeal College of Business Media Relations Office at 814-863-3798 or wed112@psu.edu.
Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers highly ranked undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive education opportunities to more than 5,500 students at all levels. Featuring academic departments of accounting, finance, marketing, insurance and real estate, management, and supply chain and information systems, the college is also home to major research centers such as the Center for Supply Chain Research, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the Center for Digital Transformation, the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Center for Global Business Studies, and the Center for the Management of Technological and Organizational Change.
