DATE: April 10, 2006

Apparently theyÕre good at more than soccer and samba. A team of undergraduate management students from the Universidade de S‹o Paulo, in Brazil, took this yearÕs UW Global Business Case Competition.

With an emphasis on global. The competition, held April 6-8 on the UW campus, drew 16 teams from Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Denmark, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Uganda and the U.S.

McGill University (Canada), the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and the UW rounded out the final four with the victorious Brazilians.

This yearÕs case gave the student teams just 48 hours to draw up workable plans to redevelop the war-ravaged economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The case, written by Vandra Huber, professor of human resources management at the UW Business School, and Patricia Kelley, assistant professor of management at UW-Bothell, was the subject of an op-ed in the April 7 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The Global Business Case Competition, in its eighth year, was organized and hosted by UW Business School students, the Global Business Center (GBC) and the Certificate for International Studies in Business (CISB) program. Sponsors included Boeing, Captaris, Costco, Expeditors International, F5 Networks, Fluke, Holland America Line, Microsoft, Starbucks, T-Mobile, Washington First International Bank, Wells Fargo and Weyerhaeuser.

Alaska Airlines and American Airlines/American Eagle teamed up to provide special travel arrangements for the team from Southern University A&M in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.