The Hitachi Foundation and Net Impact are delighted to announce the winners of the 2011 Pioneer Employer Competition, which culminated at the 2011 Net Impact Conference at the Portland Convention Center on Friday, October 28, 2011. This year’s teams brought their A-game to the conference, and truly earned their spots on the podium.
The first round of the Pioneer Competition challenged MBA students from 27 schools to analyze case study “Integrated Packaging Corporation: Struggling to Do the Right Thing,”* which focuses on the story of inner city business owner Al Fuller of Integrated Packaging Corporation (IPC), who successfully revitalized failing corrugated box plants in New Brunswick, NJ and Detroit, MI while dramatically improving the standard of living for his employees. In a twist on the traditional case competition, these teams were also challenged to devise and implement a strategy for integrating cases involving improved economic opportunities for workers into their MBA core curriculum. Teams were asked to work with faculty at their university to incorporate cases on these Pioneer Employers into their core curriculum in order to introduce business students to the possibilities of this powerful model.
Of the 27, five finalist teams showed remarkable integration, including more than a dozen letters of support from faculty stating their progress, while also providing an excellent case analysis. The five teams convened in Portland for the finals at the end of October.
The finals of the Pioneer Employer Competition involved analyzing a Harvard Business Review Case about Pioneer Employer QuikTrip, a convenience/gasoline retailer in the Southern U.S. with an extraordinary workforce training and retention model, and industry-leading customer service, productivity and profitability per square foot. The case was written by Professor Zeynep Ton of MIT. Teams had two weeks to develop their case analysis, and presented their findings to judges at a lively session at the 2011 Net Impact Conference.
Here at The Hitachi Foundation, we can’t help but be inspired by the hard work these teams put into working for a sustainable business model that will positively affect lower-wage workers and businesses as the competition continues. Thank you and congratulations to all of our finalists!
The Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland | Curriculum Change Winner and Case Competition Runner-up
Congratulations to Stephen Huie, Luisa Fernanda Lopez Gordillo, and Lacey Nguyen! They demonstrated the most solid integration of Pioneer Employer cases into their business curriculum, allowing students to learn about these models for years to come. As one judge put it, they had a “great understanding of faculty challenges and constraints, as well as program view.” In the case competition, judges were most impressed by how effective these three were at communicating their points – both on paper and in person.
Yale School of Management | Case Competition Winner
Julia Otis, Emma Pollack-Pelzner, Julia Rozovsky, Matt Schmitt, and Jason Zahorchak showed the highest quality analysis, but where they really shined was in their ability to defend their recommendations for the case. Congratulations to Yale!
MIT Sloan School of Management | Curriculum Change Runner-up
The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University | Curriculum Change Runner-up
Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis | Finalist
The Hitachi Foundation awarded $10,000 in prize money to the top teams at the competition, including $4,000 for first place in the curriculum change plan, and $3,000 for first place in the case analysis.
The Pioneer Employer Case Competition is a part of The Hitachi Foundation’s Business and Work Program, which seeks to advance the fields of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate citizenship by discovering sustainable business practices that strengthen the bottom line and create pathways out of poverty for low-income workers. Specifically, The Hitachi Foundation works with several partner organizations to identify and build a compelling set of case studies demonstrating how investment in frontline workers can result in increased returns to not only employees, but also communities and investors.
Download the QuikTrip case.
Download the Integrated Packaging Corporation case.
* Copyright 2006, Harvard Business Publishing.
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