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Volume 15, Number 11: Faculty Focus
November 2009

Listen to a 5-minute interview with Professor David Sharp on HBA international opportunities   Listen (4.2MB)   Subscribe

In an increasingly global economy there is a need for business leaders with a global perspective. Ivey has recognized this need and includes global business issues as well as opportunities for international learning in its HBA program. Opportunity exists for students to get hands-on experience in an international setting, preparing them for success wherever they choose to work.

Ashleigh Nimigan recently sat down with David Sharp, Associate Professor and Faculty Director of HBA International Opportunities. She started by asking him about the benefits for students who go on an international exchange in the second term of HBA2?

A. Well, business these days is international and our students need to be trained internationally. Some students are already international – maybe they grew up aboard, like I did, or maybe they have family back home somewhere and they visit regularly and so they speak the language and they know the culture. For others, the best opportunity [to gain international experience] is a semester abroad at one of our 30 odd exchange partners; they are some of the top schools in the world. So they get the benefit of studying at another top school; they get to live for four months in a different culture; they learn a language; they learn different values; they get to travel locally as well, quite often; and they build a network of friends –an international network that they couldn’t build here.

[Furthermore,] they get to go to a different university and different universities have different teaching traditions. We use cases [at Ivey] but other schools don’t, so they get to learn on a different method there.

I think the final benefit relates to their resumes. They demonstrate by going aboard that they have some cross cultural competence and that they’re willing to go outside of their comfort zone. These are the kind of things that set their resumes apart from the run of the mill ones.

Q. How do the Study Tours work in the HBA program? Who can go and which countries students have visited in the past?

A. They take various forms. One program that is run out of the HBA Program Office takes the form of 10 days of travel and study in Europe. Our plan is to run a 10 day study tour located in Europe, in two or three locations. We will visit factories, we will visit European institutions, and generally we will get to learn some of the learn some of the different ways of doing business in Europe. So that’s the European one. That one is actually primarily aimed at our AEO students, our Advanced Entry Opportunity students, but it is also open to HBA students.

There are a number of other student run projects. I can think immediately of the student run study trip to Israel. Our partner schools, our exchange partner schools, run study tours and study programs in their own schools in Europe. Students can study for about three weeks, get academic credit for the study, they get to visit and travel around Europe, and of course they classroom sessions.

Q. There are also opportunities for students to plan and lead unique international challenges. Can you talk about the project that leads HBA students to Central and Eastern Europe?

A. Oh yes, lets talk about the former Soviet Union [trip], that would be the LEADER Project. This is another entirely student run venture that has been running now for the best part of 20 years. [The trip] started as students going abroad as to teach the basics of capitalist business in the former Soviet Union. But of course, as the former Soviet Union evolved their own teaching capability, [the trip needed to] evolve and now [students go over to] teach entrepreneurship. They act more like consultants. [The students] work with partners in the former Soviet Union (and some other places) and with a partner institution, where they meet with local entrepreneurs. There is a certain amount of teaching with cases, as we do here, and a certain amount of coaching entrepreneurs in terms of preparing business plans and things like that, for which there is still a great demand.

That was David Sharp, Associate Professor and Faculty Director of HBA International Opportunities.