Greg Baker (MBA ’09) soon will have abundant opportunities to use the Mandarin he’s learned at Kenan-Flagler this semester. When he joins teammates in China for two weeks this month, Baker will be working on recommendations for a real business challenge in a new MBA student consulting project.

The Global Business Project, a multi-university program that Kenan-Flagler officials champion, offers unique opportunities by integrating international cultures, language learning and teamwork through virtual teaming and action learning. Teams use Internet-based meeting software that enables students on different continents to see and hear presentations, create documents together and talk with each other. Through action learning, teams work on projects with real deliverables as students strengthen their skills individually, in part by feedback from teammates, faculty advisers and clients.

“It’s something that will give me an added dimension to my resume and strengthen my ability to do business (in China) or work with people who are from China or other countries,” Baker says. “I’ll not only have the language but a little bit of the culture as well.”

The course involves 11 businesses and includes projects in China, Brazil and Japan.

The Global Business Project was developed by a group of Centers for International Business Education and Research, or CIBERs. The main goal of the centers, supported in part by the U.S. Department of Education, is to increase America’s competitiveness as an international business partner. The project will help by identifying challenges businesses face and finding solutions through teamwork while enabling students to work in a business setting using a language other than English.

The program “takes the best of what students are learning in the classroom and applies it to very specific business problems with some language capacity built in,” says Terry Kale, UNC’s associate director of CIBER.

The projects will “replicate as much as possible what it is like to work for real companies these days … to work on projects with real results and real risks,” says Lynne Gerber, UNC’s director of CIBER.

Participating businesses will benefit, too. Officials at the participating companies, based in the United States and abroad, may meet students they want to hire. And the project gives clients “a rich opportunity to think about some problems or some opportunities or challenges that they might have hired consultants for, but these are students who are full of fresh ideas and can give them strategic options,” Kale says.

Teams met at a kickoff in March in Washington, D.C. Students, faculty advisers and company representatives defined the scope of work and set expectations. Since then, teams have worked virtually. In mid-May, students will travel abroad, where they’ll stay for about two weeks to finish their projects.

Fifty-three students from the United States and abroad, including 16 from UNC, are involved. Students and companies apply to participate. Students must know the language of their target country or be willing to have a plan for an agreed upon degree of language competency.

Baker will spend time in Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai in his project for Old Dominion Freight Line Inc., based in Thomasville, N.C. “I’m interested in getting an international focus to my MBA,” he says. “The Global Business Project was what really stuck out to me from the perspective of doing a real business project in an international location.”