Human Capital Case Competition

“Board chairmen or chief executives who trot out the familiar phrase that ‘our people are our greatest asset’ may actually be right.”

“The number of credit hours MBA students are choosing to take from HR and Organizational Behavior electives has risen by 40%.”

Think these quotes come from a touch-feely human resource association or magazine? Think again. The Financial Times, among many other hard-core business publications are increasingly reporting on the importance of human capital and human resources in business schools and companies around the world. After all, you can create the world’s best financial plan, but you’ve got to hire people to make it happen.

Human capital matters. No matter what your role in an organization, you will be dealing with human capital issues and challenges from hiring and firing to managing performance and forecasting talent needs. If your office, division or business unit needed you to solve a human capital challenge, would you be prepared?

That’s where the National MBA Human Capital Case Competition comes in. The first national, graduate event of its kind, teams from across North America will come to Nashville, Tennessee to compete for over $20,000 in cash prizes and be named Human Capital Case Competition champions.

The idea for the competition came from MBA leaders at the Owen Graduate School of Management. Then-students Susan D. Strayer and Heather Webb, officers of the Human and Organizational Performance Association (HOPA) under the leadership of Professor Neta Moye, Ph.D, wanted a way to elevate the importance of human capital strategy in business schools. Since almost every business discipline except human capital had a case competition, the team, with the generous support of Deloitte and GE, worked to launch the inaugural National MBA Case Competition.