Newswise — The USC Marshall School of Business will host the world's largest case competition beginning today as student teams from 30 top schools on four continents take on challenging real-world problems facing major companies.

"The Marshall International Case Competition is emblematic of our school's emphasis on understanding the impacts of globalization on business," said James G. Ellis, USC Marshall's dean. "We bring together the world's best and brightest undergraduates and challenge them to come up with solutions to challenges facing major corporations. It's great training and a great chance for them to begin building a worldwide network with each other."

Sponsors of the competition, now in its 10th year, include Nestlé, Ernst & Young, Wells Fargo, Philip Morris and Eli Lilly. The competition will kick off with an opening reception and dinner tonight in downtown Los Angeles. Students will begin work on their cases on Friday morning, and make presentations to a panel of judges throughout the morning of Saturday, Feb. 16 before a concluding awards dinner that night.

The competition will be based at the University of Southern California campus in Los Angeles, and also will include a site visit to Paramount Studios, a scavenger hunt around the city and a Los Angeles Clippers basketball game.

International schools taking part in the competition include: Concordia University, University of Western Ontario and McGill University (Canada); National University of Singapore and Singapore Management University (Singapore); Copenhagen Business School (Denmark); Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Hong Kong); Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Mexico); Mahidol University (Thailand); Manchester Business School (England); Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (Italy); Universiteit of Maastricht (Netherlands); University College Dublin (Ireland); University of Auckland (New Zealand); and University of Melbourne (Australia).

U.S. schools taking part in the competition, besides USC Marshall, include: Babson College, Carnegie Mellon University, Indiana University, The Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Arizona, University of California at Berkeley, University of Florida, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Minnesota, University of Pennsylvania, University of South Carolina, University of Texas at Austin, University of Wisconsin at Madison.

About the USC Marshall School of Business Based at the crossroads of the Pacific Rim, in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, the USC Marshall School of Business trains global leaders to make a difference in the world.

The school annually serves more than 5,700 undergraduate, graduate, professional and executive-education students at the main campus in Los Angeles and at satellite facilities in Irvine and North San Diego County. In conjunction with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, USC Marshall operates a Global Executive MBA program in China. Marshall's many highly ranked programs and centers of excellence include the Leventhal School of Accounting.For more information, go to http://www.marshall.usc.edu