Not only did a class assignment lead to Laura Winter and her international team winning the X-Culture Competition, it led to a job offer.

Winter, who graduates in May with a degree in management, finished the international competition with a job offer from Forcier Consulting, a company that provides reliable and high quality research in complex settings in Africa. The team was also awarded $1,000 by Forcier.

Winter and her team - students from Germany, Grenada, and Canada – provided key information for the group about national currency and major banks operating in Mozambique.

“It was a good experience,” said Winter, who is originally from Germany. “It was good to work with people from different cultures on this project.”

X-Culture is a competition in which business students from all over the world participate in a real world business case. The students are teamed in groups of five to eight people to act as business consultants.

These real-world scenarios give students the opportunity to gain experience in consulting, teamwork, international collaboration, and crowd-based problem solving while building network of professionals and business owners.

Nineteen of Dr. Raina Rutti’s students in her Managing Effective Teams in a Global Environment class entered the competition.

Two other business students, Chasity Ashby and Jordan Bowling, were also finalists in the competition. There were 745 teams with 4,039 students from 112 universities in 47 countries participating. Each team completed a 30-40 page report which was independently evaluated by independent appraisers.

“The time constraints, trying to find time to connect with other team members was the hardest part of the project,” said Ashby, a technology management major. “Because I want to go into technology audits, there could be a lot of international travel for my job. And this was a good experience for me to have.”

Her team consisted of students from the U.S., France, Ecuador, Kenya, and India. In the final report, the team identified her as one of the leaders for the group, contributing research in several topic areas, writing portions of the report, and editing for final submission.

“I think we worked well with everyone and learned how to communicate well,” said Bowling, a management major.

His team consisted of students from the U.S., India, France, Ecuador, and Kenya. He provided key information for several portions of the report and made the final recommendation on location for expansion. His team was able to effectively use cultural differences and similarities as an advantage for their final recommendation. 

posted 02/26/2016 in Academics

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