OneMBA in the South China Morning Post

The following article was published January 16, 2010 in the South China Morning Post.

Global residencies broaden horizons: OneMBA Multicultural groups collaborating in four international venues mirror the diverse nature of today’s business environment

With its main aim of training executives to be global business leaders, the OneMBA Global Executive MBA programme, offered by Chinese University, features four intensive one-week overseas study sessions. These global residencies are hosted by the institution’s partner universities.

The residencies have been designed around the themes of the 21-month OneMBA programme’s globally co-ordinated modules, and are fully integrated into the curriculum.

The partner universities are: the Kenan-Flagler Business School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the United States; the EGADE-ITESM in Mexico; the Fundação Getúlio Vargas in Brazil; and the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University in the Netherlands. They each host one of the week-long residencies in their respective regions.

Each of the partner universities in the programme brings in its class for the residencies.

“We bring together five groups of students for each residency to make an international class,” says Professor Michael Ferguson, director of MBA programmes at the faculty of business administration at Chinese University.

During the residencies, executives from all the partner universities form global study teams of up to seven members, with each team comprising one or two students from each school. The students are expected to collaborate with their global team members to complete assignments and projects. “It mimics the work groups of multinational corporations,” Ferguson says.

Apart from attending lectures and discussions led by the faculty members of the local schools, the executives fully immerse themselves in the local business environment by visiting local and multinational businesses and meeting with prominent business leaders from the region.

Members of the global study teams meet physically during the residencies and communicate with each other online after each residency and until their projects are completed.

“In all we have four residencies spread over three terms. In the first residency, we bring the global teams together and put them into the groups they will be working with. We give them some basic training about working in multicultural teams. Each group is expected to design a charter governing how they will collaborate on projects. They will also elect a team leader and decide on the decision-making process that they will use for the duration of their work together,” he says.

A new global team will be formed for each residency. “The global teams formed in the first residency will meet in the second residency to debrief and wrap up the projects assigned in the first residency and give presentations. They are also expected to evaluate their teamwork,” Ferguson says. “During the evaluation process the executives will also form new global teams for the second term.

“This means that over the 21 months, the executives will be in several different global teams. They really get to know those team members with whom they have worked and they can network with the class throughout the residencies.”

The faculty members of the five partner schools strive to optimise the balance between academic theory and business practice, and between local and international perspectives in the residencies.

“We also try to capture the latest developments within the same region,” Ferguson says. For example, during the European residency, executives will spend half of the time studying the best corporate practices in the well-developed economic settings in the Netherlands. Then they will spend the rest of the time on field study in Turkey.

The content of each residency is co-ordinated by all of the partner universities, that each must agree on content to ensure that it is of a truly global nature and represents the local business environment of each of the regions. The OneMBA programme began with the North American residency in September last year, which focused on global perspectives and the US business environment.

“The response from the current students is very positive. Although our partner university is in North Carolina, the residency itself took place in Washington DC. The students had the opportunity to meet with state senators and prominent business leaders,” Ferguson says. Students who enrol in the OneMBA programme at Chinese University will not only receive their qualification from it upon graduation, they will also be awarded a OneMBA certificate by all five partner universities.

The programme attracts senior executives and professionals who desire to operate on the global stage. With an average of 12 years of managerial experience, they come from diverse sectors, including accounting, communications, engineering and financial services. The extensive working experience of the students helps to enrich and broaden the scope of the study.

“Because many projects in the programme have a strategic component and involve decision-making by senior management in the context of global operation, we admit executives who are involved in making these decisions [at their respective organisations],” Ferguson says.

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