University of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign

University of Illinois

At Urbana-Champaign

With the enhanced international resources available on campus, and based on its demonstrated capacity for accomplishment, Illinois CIBER is ready to launch an ambitious agenda for the next four years. This agenda is designed to meet the changing needs of our constituents - students, faculty, and business professionals. As the world becomes increasingly globally interdependent, technologically advanced, and culturally diverse, we need to develop more integrated frameworks to guide international business teaching, research, and practice. To this end, we have adopted the theme “Technology, Culture, and International Competitiveness” to provide a vision and direction for our new CIBER agenda. This theme builds on the unique strengths of the University of Illinois as a world leader in the development and deployment of cutting-edge technologies, particularly in computing and information management, and their application to the fields of agriculture, business, library science, and engineering. Our goal is to draw from this knowledge base and combine it with area studies and foreign language expertise in developing and implementing programs that further America’s international competitiveness. This is a most exciting task, and one that the University of Illinois and its CIBER are particularly well equipped to undertake.

The Illinois CIBER’s new agenda supports seven major objectives that meet the statutory purposes of the authorizing CIBER legislation. While each objective represents a focused area of activity, they all reinforce one another in furthering the CIBER mandate of increasing the nation’s capacity for international understanding and competitiveness. The following outlines the project objectives and the proposed activities designed for their accomplishment.

1. Further enhance Illinois CIBER's national resource capability by establishing a Global Consortium for International Business to provide added support and expertise for program development and implementation.
a. Consortium Annual Meetings with Executive Briefings

b. Annual World Economy Conferences

c. Global Consortium Newsletter

d. Illinois CIBER Website Upgrade

b. Course Development Grants with Area Focus

c. Certificates in International Business with Area Specialization

d. Dual Degrees in Business and Area Studies

e. Ph.D. Minor in International Business

f. International Business Case Competition

g. Summer Overseas Study

h. Summer Overseas Internships

i. Business Foreign Language Courses

10. 
    CIBER Distinguished Speaker Series
    

b. International Agribusiness Colloquium

c. Minor in International Agribusiness

d. Minor in Global Business Reporting

e. Joint Research on Soybean Exporting

f. Joint Research on Global Web Page Design

g. Satellite International Programs for Engineers

h. Global Business Reporting Summer Institute

b. Conversation Courses in Business Foreign Language

c. Certificate in Business Foreign Language

d. Multimedia Simulation for the Teaching of Business Foreign Language

e. Online Business Foreign Language Courses

f. Online Courses on Commercial and Technical Translation

g. FDIB grants for Foreign Language Instructors

h. Workshop on Instructional Technology for Teaching Business Foreign Language

b. Implementation of Interdisciplinary Agendas

c. Research Workshops on Developing Integrated IB Curricula

d. Developing New Measures of National Culture

e. Using “Grid” Technologies to Coordinate Global Workteams

f. European Peripheral Economies as Regional Export Platforms

g. Managing Multicultural Workteams in a Global Context

h. Research on Women in International Business

i. Enhancing IB Education through Information Technology

j. Faculty IB Research Grant Competition

b. Research Forum at Regional AIB Meetings

c. Internationalization of Faculty at Chicago State University

d. Faculty Overseas Study Trips to Promote International Collaboration

e. Internationalization of Doctoral Education in Business (IDEB) Workshop

f. ION Teaching Workshops for Community College Faculty

g. Biennial International Business Institute for Community College Faculty

h. Internationalization Workshops for K-12 Teachers

i. Virtual Trade Missions for K-12 Students
7. Expand business outreach to provide increased opportunities for business professionals to further their global knowledge and cross-cultural skills, including programs to promote involvement of women-owned firms in international trade.
a. Global Business Seminars

b. Certificate in International Business Fundamentals

c. Workshops on Advanced IB Topics

d. Overseas Business Delegations

e. Certificate in International Human Resource Management

f. International Programs for Women Business Owners

g. Online State Certificate in International Business

h. Export Counseling for Illinois Businesses

1. 
   International Business Roundtables with the Local Business Community
   

The CIBER agenda outlined above includes a total of 57 project activities, of which 36 are new, and 15 are substantially enhanced or expanded versions of current activities. About sixty percent of the activities are explicitly designed to serve national audiences. Additionally, about fifty percent will involve partnership with many of our nationally ranked academic or research units on campus, including the six area studies centers (African Studies, European Union, East Asian and Pacific Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Russian and East European Studies, and South Asia and Middle Eastern Studies), Department of Agricultural Economics, the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, Graduate School of Library Science, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and others. Finally, our Global Consortium partner schools will provide added support and expertise to further enhance Illinois CIBER’s capability to develop and implement programs with national impact. When fully implemented, the proposed project will have a substantial and significant national impact on teaching, research, and business outreach.

Illinois CIBER requests federal funding for the 2002-2006 period to continue to offer high-quality teaching, research, and outreach programs that help our constituents advance their international business knowledge and cross-cultural skills. Our request is based on an eight-year record of achievement in fulfilling the CIBER mission and furthering the purposes of the CIBER authorizing legislation. The proposed project will enable Illinois CIBER to provide enhanced service to students, faculty, and business professionals and assist them in preparing for the globalization challenge of the 21st century.

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

ABSTRACT

The KU CIBER seeks to continue its growth as a valued resource sought after by professionals, firms, and communities as they strive to become more competitive in the global business environment. It will provide pertinent information and facilitate the public-private partnerships critical to acting locally while competing globally. It will help to ensure a growing supply of new professionals capable of contributing to the global efforts of their organizations and to assure that current managers have the opportunity to learn new skills critical to their firms’ global success.

Based in a Midwestern university with a wealth of international resources and a business school committed to building professional skills on a liberal arts foundation, the KU CIBER is surrounded by a region linked to global markets through the provision of professional, transportation, and communication services. The KU CIBER aspires to be a model for interdisciplinary course development and a national resource for trade in services, important in their own right, but also crucial inputs into the production and trade of many goods. It draws on the expertise at KU of four federally funded National Resource Centers focusing on East Asia, Russia and East Europe, Latin America, and Africa, and a growing European Studies center, as well as faculty across the campus who have experience relevant to business in myriad countries and contexts.

Our CIBER is located in a region where support for international business is needed and has a great impact. The greater Kansas City area ranks 11^th nationally in exports; 65 percent of its business is international; and global trade accounts for nearly 25 percent of its GDP. The region is a vital and growing transportation hub, where major highways and railways running from north to south and east to west intersect. It is also home to major firms with international operations, such as Sprint, Hallmark, Black and Veatch (the nation’s 13^th largest engineering firm), American Century Investments, H&R Block, Kansas City Southern Industries (owner of the “NAFTA Railroad”), Yellow Corporation, and many others. These firms hire a large proportion of our graduates and many of their employees attend the part-time MBA program at our Kansas City campus. Some are represented on the CIBER Advisory Council; others are involved in the CIBER’s outreach activities, conferences, and executive education.

In this proposal, the KU CIBER seeks to extend its accomplishments of the 1999-02 grant cycle. We will continue our CIBER’s central focus on international trade in services, the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. economy. The nature of international trade in services demands extensive communication with buyers and the ability to interact easily with many different cultures. Hence, our CIBER pays heightened attention to issues of language, cross-cultural management, and ethics.

It is clear that the next CIBER cycle will correspond with a time of great national and international uncertainty. As world events continue to unfold, new strategies and techniques will need to be developed to help U.S. businesses continue to succeed internationally. Our CIBER has built flexibility and responsiveness into the proposed programs, so that we will be able to introduce projects and modules dealing with timely issues on an ongoing basis. Our proposal also includes remote delivery of IB education by electronic means, and research into experiential learning alternatives to study abroad, and we have the ability to expand these features if the need arises. The KU CIBER will help provide a conduit to make appropriate resources available to the business community as it copes with the changes in the global business environment.

Programs proposed for the 2002-2006 cycle are described below.

INTEGRATED IB/CLASSWORK EXPERIENCES

· Global Research Integrative Projects (4.1). This integrative capstone course will be the centerpiece of the newly revised MBA program starting in 2002. Interested MBA students will spend eight weeks studying an industry sector or company, including two weeks of site work outside the U.S.

· Trilateral master’s (1.3). Planning is under way and approvals are being sought for a new tri-continent, three-school master’s degree program to be taught in English at KU, Tongji University in Shanghai, and ACI Negocia in Paris. The degree awarded will be an M.S. in International Business from KU, with certificates from Tongji and Negocia.

· Experience Entrepreneurship Globally (1.2). This certificate program for would-be entrepreneurs will provide classroom instruction on entrepreneurship basics, and a two-week study abroad tour at recognized entrepreneurial sites, e.g., Hong Kong, Ahmedabad, India, northern Italy, and Aberdeen, Scotland.

· International E-learning (4.3). An on-line, Web-based version of the course, Business, Culture, and Society in Western Europe, will be developed and delivered to students participating in the program at KU’s Italy Campus.

· Joint MA/MBA (6.5). The KU CIBER has fostered the initiation of joint degrees with the NRCs in Latin America and Russia and East Europe. We will extend MA/MBA program to East Asia and Western Europe.

NEW AND EHANCED CLASSES

· Globalizing American Studies (4.2). The KU CIBER will work with the American Studies Program to develop a module on globalization for the introductory American Studies course, reaching over 400 students per year.

· New Required MBA IB Course (4.7). We will design and implement a new, one-credit IB course to be required of all full-time and part-time students in the MBA program.

· Visiting Faculty from Partner Institutions (4.5). Elective choices in IB will be expanded by hosting visiting professors from foreign universities with which we have on-going relationships.

· Study Abroad (6.2 & 6.3). Students will benefit from new study abroad programs in Brazil, Europe, and Japan. In addition, we will add a specialized study abroad program for accounting students. We will recruit from area universities so that their students may take advantage of these opportunities.

OTHER STUDENT ACTIVITIES

· International Leadership Forum for Students in Professional Schools (4.4). This speaker series will be co-sponsored with student organizations in Business, Engineering, and Law.

· Educational Linkages with Ecole Superieure de Commerce Clermont-Ferrand (4.6). At the request of ESC-Clermont, we will send a Ph.D. student to teach at Clermont each year, and will invite Clermont faculty to teach at KU.

· Internships (4.8). Foreign internships will be developed directly by CIBER and through collaboration with the student group AISEC; we will also seed internships in regional trade organizations.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE INITIATIVES

· Accelerated Portuguese for Business (2.1). Responding to regional and national needs, we will develop an accelerated language program to develop fluency in Portuguese and familiarity with the Brazilian business environment.

· Brazilian Studies Certificate (2.2). A related initiative will be development of a new certificate in Brazilian studies, to be offered to undergraduate Latin American Studies or Business majors.

· CIBER Teaching Internships in Foreign Business/Professional Language Training (2.3). The KU CIBER will provide compensation for Ph.D. students in foreign language programs to work with faculty members to deliver business/professional language courses. The interns will also receive CIBER support to attend appropriate business language workshops.

· Foreign Language Training for Graduate Business Students (2.4). Tutoring in several languages, including Chinese, Italian, and Japanese, will be offered to groups of students (also open to faculty) in conjunction with international study opportunities.

· German/Business Language Course (2.5). A new course, Introductory German for the Professional Schools, will benefit students whose class schedules make it difficult to take the traditional five-hour course.

· Sponsorship of business language conferences (2.6). Conferences sponsored will include the CIBER Conference on Language, Communication, and Global Management, and the Conference on Using Instructional Technology in Teaching Business Language.

NATIONAL SYMPOSIA (1.4)
The KU CIBER proposes two national symposia

· International Trade and Labor Standards, sponsored in collaboration with the Robert J. Dole Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at KU, will examine the rights and roles of labor and capital in the globalization process.

· NAFTA at Ten Years: A View from the Heartland, sponsored with the Dole Institute and the Center of Latin American Studies, will convene scholars, executives, and government representatives to examine the region’s experience with NAFTA at its tenth anniversary.

The best presentations from these symposia, and from the IB Ethics symposia described below, will be published in edited volumes.

IB ETHICS INITIATIVES

· National symposia (1.4). The KU and Thunderbird CIBERs will collaborate on the International Trade and Labor Standards Symposium described above and on other ethics symposia including one on IB ethics in the information age (2003-04) and one focusing on global efforts to reduce corruption in global transactions (2004-05).

· IB Ethics Workshop (5.3b). The IB Ethics workshop co-sponsored in Kansas City with Thunderbird and Sprint in April, 2001, will be offered in other locations, and a specialized IB ethics workshop will be developed for engineering professionals.

· Faculty Development in IB Ethics (1.6). We will extend our regional faculty development workshop on IB ethics to a national audience by offering it in conjunction with the Globalization Seminars organized by the Memphis CIBER.

· International Society for Business, Economics, and Ethics (6.4). Our CIBER will sponsor two faculty from KU or other institutions to attend this Society’s conference in 2004.
GLOBAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT INITIATIVES (1.1)
This collaborative Business-Engineering project aims to accelerate the creation of project managers that are able to work effectively in international setting, and to make U.S. engineering firms more competitive internationally. In 1999-02, we introduced graduate and undergraduate courses in global project management, including a study abroad experience. For 2002-06 we will create:

· a module on international aspects of project management, to be embedded in existing professional education programs;

· a global project management program for young managers;

· an executive education program for project managers moving into leadership roles;

· a Council of Presidents of global engineering and construction firms located within the region, to advise the CIBER on the development of these programs.