UL Lafayette’s MBA International Business class recently put theories into practice when it collaborated with university students and professionals in countries around the world.
Led by Dr. David Baker, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, it worked for two months on real business challenges presented by multinational companies.
It was the first group of UL Lafayette MBA students to complete the Global E-Team X-Culture Project, a course that involves thousands of students and professionals from over 40 countries each semester.
Throughout the course, students compete, collaborate and learn about the challenges and best practices of international business consulting.
During the Spring 2016 semester, teams consisting of five or six members from different countries were charged with developing high-quality business plans for participating companies, working alongside over 3,600 students from 100 universities.
UL Lafayette MBA students helped create educational toys for children in Lithuania, expand the market for chocolate in Colombia and develop new product features and promotion strategies for an electric vehicle company in the United States and India.
Ronald Castro Avila, an MBA student from Cartagena, Colombia, worked as part of an international virtual team that earned a Top 10 spot among the 725 entries received.
“The project gave me the opportunity to interact and work with students from all around the world and with different backgrounds to help a company solve a real life problem. It also allows students to put into practice all the concepts and principles learned in the MBA program,” said Castro Avila.
Baker, who was named one of the Top 30 instructors for the Spring 2016 competition, was pleased with Castro Avila’s results as well as the overall class participation. “The students did a great job and vastly exceeded my expectations in professionalism toward a challenging cross-cultural team project.”