PHILADELPHIA (April 28, 2011) – Cynics might consider the concept of business ethics an oxymoron, but a group of Saint Joseph's University’s graduate business students took on the challenge and decided to examine business issues through the prism of ethics. These students participated in SJU’s Pedro Arrupe Center for Business Ethics’ recent Graduate Student Business Ethics Paper competition, which seeks comprehensive papers that integrate issues of social responsibility and ethics in a business case or decision.

The students competed for the following monetary prizes: $2,000 for the first place winner, $1,500 for second place and $1,000 for third place.

The winning entry, “Substitution/Interchangeability of Innovator Biologics with Biosimilars: Ethical Considerations,” was written by Linda Hannemann, a Pharmaceutical Marketing EMBA student from Moorestown, N.J. Hannemann chose a topic of high relevance to her field of expertise. Biologics, or medicine developed through biologic processes, is currently a business challenge faced by pharmaceutical companies with innovator biologics, she explained.

Erik Marshall, a Pharmaceutical Marketing EMBA student from Northampton, Pa., wrote the entry that won the second place honors. His paper debated “the on-going struggles in the pharmaceutical field between industry and the agencies that govern it.” He describes the decision to write for the Pedro Arrupe Ethics Paper competition “as a way to bring my graduate course work and professional career together in a way that addressed one of many current ethical concerns within the field.”

Matthew Palmer and Debra Van Camp tied for third place. Palmer, an MBA student from Hartford, Conn., submitted a paper discussing the issue of net neutrality. “I’ve worked with computers in my professional life, and I wanted to find a way to connect ethics and technology,” said Palmer. Van Camp’s entry analyzed the misconceptions and ethical concerns associated with organic food along with “the stakeholder responsibilities and recommended solutions to promote consumer autonomy.”

About The Pedro Arrupe Center for Business Ethics: Pedro Arrupe S.J. (1907-1991) was a scholar, doctor, priest and champion for service to others and justice for all. The Pedro Arrupe Center for Business Ethics was founded in 2005 as an intellectual resource for business ethics. The mission of the Arrupe Center is to assure that students are equipped to engage in careful, sustained, and critical reflection on ethical issues and are prepared to use that reflection in their business decision making.