This Project is a concluding, integrative exercise in which students are required to apply their knowledge and skills learned in previous courses to working on a real-life business case for either a profit-seeking or a nonprofit organization. The chosen organization can be of any size, business nature and stage of business development. Yet, it must be an international, preferably be engaged in China-related businesses/operations, organization in the form of import-export trading, licensing, franchising, joint venturing, consortium, a subsidiary and/or the parent company.

This case is a laboratory for students to apply their learning to real-world strategic problems. Specifically, students are required to have a good understanding of the chosen organization, identify the key strategic issue(s) facing the organization, conduct a thorough internal and external (including international) analysis using appropriate theoretical models and make recommendations taking into consideration the cost implications, feasibilities and all stakeholders. In the real business world, there are times that professionals face “can’t fix” problems. Students are expected to anticipate these problems and prepare the “second best” plans with emergent strategies.

It is an exercise in managing task-focused relationships among team members, client managers and the faculty supervisors. It gives students a chance to define issues, to gather relevant data from a variety of sources, to do insightful analysis as well as to develop creative and feasible solutions. It also provides opportunities for students to learn about an organization, an industry and/or a field of management that is of long-term interest to the members of the project team.

At least four seminars hosted by researchers and/or practitioners with good amount of experience will be organized and students are required to attend all as this forms an important part of learning.

Students, working in groups of 3-5, will be assessed according to the depth and width of their analysis, the appropriateness, feasibility, and cost-effectiveness of their recommendations and the implications on implementation and stakeholders.