Date: January 1-8, 2017
Program Fee: $3,044 with 20 participants
COURSE DESCRIPTION AND RATIONALE
The January 2017 AGSM Study Abroad will take place in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, China. We will visit numerous companies, factories, and NGOs.
We are excited to visit China, the most populous country, with 1.35 billion people, about 20 percent of the world. The country has evolved to superpower status in economic, military, and geopolitical terms. China is the world's second-largest economy and the biggest importer and exporter. In the past decade, China’s economy grew about seven times faster than that of the United States (316% versus 43%). The country’s per-capita GDP of $6,000 implies that many Chinese remain in poverty. However, China’s middle class now numbers some 300 million people (equivalent to US total population), most with incomes more than $15,000 per year.
China's retail market is massive and growing rapidly. The country is now the world’s largest market for automobiles, beer, and luxury goods. China is also an important destination for global sourcing and low-cost manufacturing. Rapid industrialization has brought unintended consequences, including massive air and water pollution.
China’s civilization dates back some 8,000 years. Mandarin Chinese is spoken by nearly 1 billion people, more than any other language worldwide. Today, about 140,000 Chinese students study at US universities, the largest group of international students by far. In China, we will visit Hong Kong, one of the world’s vibrant business centers; Shenzhen, home to many of China’s leading firms and factories; and Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province in traditional, southern China.
The AGSM Study Abroad includes a required one-credit course in which we’ll learn about doing business in China. The trip includes visits to numerous companies, organizations, and cultural sites in and around southern China. The course emphasizes fundamentals of international management, (ii) the environments and challenges of doing business in China, and (iii) strategies and operations for succeeding in China.