College of Business Administration

GROUP MEMBERS:

Chris Boyd
Matt Edds
Katie Barrett
Jamil Shamoon
Scott Zumwalt

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Overview of the Program

Brenda Nason, an instructor at Hoover High School, oversees a remarkable program for those members of the graduating senior class with college bound aspirations. This “Virtual Enterprise” opportunity provides a new, more hands-on or real world approach to teaching via Internet use and a quasi business hierarchy structure rather than that of conventional high school classroom settings.

The Genesis of each semester begins with a class of 25-40 high school seniors who are then divided into one of two groups, each group responsible for creating an Internet business entity from the ground up. The students prepare job descriptions, interview for their desired position (Brenda acts as the hiring body), and are hired into a position based on how they performed. After staffing and hierarchal structure have been set in place, Brenda, acting in a consultant capacity, rather than as a teacher, sets general rules and guidelines for the students to abide by, the make-believe budget for each virtual firm, as well as deadlines and goals to meet. By semester’s end, an Internet based virtual enterprise is to become functional, operating within budget limitations and legal parameters. The program reaches semester long fruition at a convention where students from all over the state participating in the Virtual Enterprise program congregate, observe, and interact with the various e-businesses. Students are also given e-funds with which to purchase items from the virtual firms of their choosing.

This program allows seniors at Hoover High School, an institution with a majority of economically underprivileged students, dynamic exposure to the core fundamentals and dimensions of the business world, hopefully sparking interest into attending college and pursuing careers in a business setting.

Mission of the Social Change Project

The mission of our social change project is to provide support and aid to Brenda Nason and her Virtual Enterprise program. Specifically, we wanted to provide support in both short and long term capacities.

In the short term (i.e. for the duration of the semester), we would like to provide consultative aid to the class during session hours, directly helping students work through new idea creation, problem solving, and explanation of core business functions in order to reach their firm and classroom goals. In addition to consultation, we feel that our presence in class, as college attending business students, will allow us to act as mentors and advisors for these college hopeful seniors. By making our own college experiences accessible, we believe students will be able to relate to those only a few years older than them about the unknowns of higher learning, better preparing them for a future we hope they decide to undertake.

In the long term (i.e. for many semesters to come), our group would like to put in motion, a core of local San Diego firms willing to do one of two things to help the Virtual Enterprise program: (1) provide company representatives from core departments (i.e. finance, marketing, human resources) to speak to the students about the firm itself and the purpose of the department in which they represent, or (2) allow a number of students from the class to visit company offices and observe core business functions and activities as they happen in the real world.

Conclusions and Recommendations

We have concluded that, through direct classroom interaction, consultation, and advisement of class enrolled seniors, and by urging local firms to provide representation to speak about core business positions, our social change process is a success (a success insofar as we have accomplished set tasks that we believe will contribute to the ultimate goal of helping send all Virtual Enterprise students into a collegiate program. One could then say our ultimate success/failure is yet to be determined).

After an analysis of our collective experience and interaction with the Virtual Enterprise class, we have assessed and targeted areas of the program that can improve and develop. Despite far exceeding any of our expectations for a high school level course, the Virtual Enterprise program could improve the overall quality of core business fundamentals through (1) Facility and equipment upgrades, (2) extending total time spent in the program, and (3) acquiring collaborative sponsorship via local colleges or business organizations. Improving the facilities and equipment could raise the student’s learning curve by putting them in touch with current business technologies, such as using up-to-date accounting software or giving presentations with Power Point capabilities. Extending the time spent in the program to a full academic year could enable a more intensive and challenging project for the students, further immersing themselves into business oriented career paths. And finally, acquiring collaborative sponsorship from local universities and companies could enable for higher funding and public exposure to such an effective program, hopefully allowing for serious program growth, spreading into new areas and schools.

Ethical Frameworks Realized

The Social Contract Theory states, “Morality consists in the set of rules, governing how people are to treat one another, that rational people will agree to accept, for their mutual benefit, on the condition that others will follow those rules as well.” As a group, we feel that education is a constant process of others endowing knowledge to those without, contributing to the intellectual enrichment of society as a whole. It is our duty to honor the social contract of spending time to educate others as others have educated us.

Deontology argues, “Actions are morally right or wrong independent of their consequences.” In alignment with what our group perceives as a universal belief that passing along knowledge and helping those in need is a moral imperative, regardless of consequence, we undertook this project, knowing that we are to do our best to positively impact college aspiring students, as well as the very program geared toward sending those students to institutions of higher learning.

The Ethic of Care beckons us “to recognize and take seriously the moral worth of relationships, particularly those characterized by caring.” As a group, we recognize the mission of our project is one motivated by our care for the future of these Hoover high school students exemplified through our volunteer efforts in the Virtual Enterprise program.