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Onyeka Okoli looks at his family’s transportation business in Nigeria differently, now that he’s completed the Master’s Project in International Business. The project falls at the conclusion of coursework in the College of Business Administration’s Master of International Business (MIB) program.
“We offer a number of projects each semester to fulfill this requirement,” said Tomislav Mandakovic, associate dean of the Alvah H. Chapman Graduate School of Business, faculty director of the MIB, and overseer of the capstone project. “The projects must have an international nature and be a current strategic or operational challenge the organization faces. The organizations also agree to plan to implement the recommendations the students come up with based on their research.” The assignments, which enable students to research the subjects involved, entail analyzing the data they obtain and presenting their recommendations—all of which is valuable on both sides. “There is no charge to the company,” Mandakovic said, “so they are getting a high level of insight and research for free. They need only to commit to delegating a counterpart to me who will manage the project from within their organizations and agree to being available for meetings and to reviewing the final report.” The students on the multinational teams benefit because they get to take on real problems—often very thorny ones—and apply what they’ve learned in their classes. “We were focused on how Canada can maintain an advantage while being more cost-effective,” said Okoli, who will graduate in Spring, 2006, and who found logistics to be a particularly relevant course for his future plans. “Companies—especially small ones—who are importing goods into the United States are challenged because of higher fuel costs and because of warehousing issues in Miami.” Now, after applying what he learned in his classes to one real-world challenge, he also will be able to apply what he learned in the project to his family’s real-world situation. “We’ll be able to improve the way we do trucking and shipping,” he said. “We’ll also look at the little things we can adjust in terms of management and decision making.” He credits the project with ensuring that students get the most out of the experience by having them take charge. “Officials within the organization and Dr. Mandakovic provide guidance about where to get some of the information we need, but we have to take the initiative, such as developing the agenda,” he said. “The project is a very good way to test our skills in international business by enabling us to gain access to the practical aspects of international business in the field.” While he found the experience very gratifying, he admits that it was a significant amount of work. The project description specifies that students be available for 150 hours per term. “I’m very happy about having done the project, getting results, and being able to make recommendations to our client,” Okoli said. “Though we divided the tasks among our three-person team, we each put many, many hours into the research and writing of our final report.” “Constant communication with area companies through our alumni and the efforts of Executive Dean Joyce J. Elam, and Chapman School Dean José de la Torre ensures that we have real-world problems for our students to take on each semester,” Mandakovic said. Satisfied clients include DHL and AIG, among others.
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