SXU business master’s program students to visit China

Group will tour Chinese businesses, stay with local family

Chicago (Feb. 5, 2008) Fourteen Saint Xavier University MBA students will get a firsthand look at China’s economic revolution during a weeklong three-credit course this spring in Beijing and Shanghai.

The “Business in Emerging Markets: Focus on China” program is the Graham School of Management’s first master’s level course to take students to another country.

SXU Graham School of Management Associate Professor Al Rosenbloom said the trip will help prepare students to run businesses within the global economy of the 21st century.

“We want our students to experience firsthand the amazing transition that China is undergoing,” Rosenbloom said. “This is no longer a country of rice fields. It is an exploding economy that is already one of the major players of the 21st century.”

Rosenbloom, who has visited China more than a dozen times, said students will tour several businesses, including: W. W. Grainger, the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the Illinois Trade Office, Bao Steel and TBWA.

The students will examine how Chinese companies operate, which can be extremely different from that of an American or Western European company.

“In a globalized world, it is essential that business managers understand the differences between business management as seen from a ‘Western’ perspective in contrast to business management from a ‘Chinese’ perspective,” Rosenbloom said.

Students will get a taste of Chinese culture by spending time with a local English-speaking family in Shanghai. They will also tour famous sites, such as the Great Wall, the Forbidden City where the Chinese imperial family lived, and the Shanghai Art Museum, which is built in the shape of an ancient Chinese cooking vessel.

The trip will take place March 15-22. Students will earn three credit hours for participating.

For more information about SXU’s travel study program, please call the Center for International Education at (773) 298-3780.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Contact: Rick Ducat
773-298-3325 or ducat@sxu.edu