Expanding Students' Understanding of Global Operations Management Through Industry-Sponsored Overseas Projects and Culturally Mixed Teams

Amy Z. Zeng

Amy Z. Zeng

Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA

Volume 5: 2011, pp. 89-108; ABSTRACT

Understanding the global and cultural issues in operations management is critical and valuable for today's business students. However, there is a shortage of exercises to allow students to cultivate, practice, and enhance this important skill. This paper describes how to design senior projects conducted at multinational companies' China offices to effectively offer an enriched environment for teaching and learning the critical elements in global operations management. These projects are characterized by multi-cultural, multi-national, multi-located teams that tackle real-world operational problems in an international environment. The impacts of such projects lie in the areas of heightened cultural awareness, improved teamwork, better project management skills, and increased self-confidence, which are confirmed by pre- and post-project surveys, and the end-of-project reflection essays.

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