UI students pitch how Iowa businesses can enter China

Fifteen small businesses in Iowa opened their doors to University of Iowa students to find out how they could market their products to Chinese consumers.

Tippie College of Business Professors Lon Moeller and Jay Christensen-Szalanski decided to add a bilingual hoop for students to jump through with this semester's online Introduction to Law course.

"We were trying to make the course more accessible to (UI's Chinese students) so they could better understand it and then in the process take advantage of the skills that they have and have them work together with the native English-speaking students," Christensen-Szalanski said.

One section of the course was offered in English to 280 students and one section was offered in Chinese to 125 students. Students from both language sections worked together on the semester-long learning project.

The 16 teams — the Amana Colonies had two presentations — each had more than 20 members, which led to some logistical issues as students had to figure out when to meet, coordinate schedules with each other as well as their busy small-business owners, and discover how to be more proficient working on a multicultural team.

"They learned a little bit about many Iowa small businesses, and they learned a lot about a particular small business," Christensen-Szalanski said. "And they also learned a lot about that industry's competitiveness in China."

The English section utilized its familiarity with Iowa small businesses and the Chinese section brought its knowledge of the Chinese consumer.

Focusing on China wasn't because it's the world's second-largest importing country — but that didn't hurt. (full article...)

Laura Hordesky, Iowa City Press-Citizen, December 12, 2014