The first Tsinghua SEM business ethics debate competition came to an end with its final took place at the end of November 2010.

Two finalist teams were from the 2010 I1 and 2010 F MBA classes. The debating topic was “whether corporations have the responsibility to refrain from layoffs during recession.” The F class team came out as the winner, while the Best Debater prize went to YE Haitao of the I1 team.

During the debate, the positive side started with the origin of the economic crisis and the concept of layoff, contending that corporations should adopt alternative methods other than layoffs to weather the recession, while the negative side maintains that taking all necessary strategies to ensure the survival of businesses is a premise to guarantee employment.

Tsinghua SEM has been attaching significant importance to ethics education. In the new MBA curriculum, Ethics and Corporate Accountability was listed as a compulsory course.

The judging panel of the competition was formed by three SEM professors WANG Yi, ZHANG Mian, HE Ping and two MBA students LI Da and ZHONG Hong from the 2009 P class.

“The business ethics competition is an extended form of ethics education,” said Professor GAO Xudong, Director of MBA Programs at SEM, “it may promote multi-perspective, multi-level thinking in students.”