Lecture on Project Management at Zhejiang University: Day Two in Hangzhou

Kelley students Joe DeVierno and Peter Servaas describe today's lecture:



After the lecture, our students joined the Zhejiang students for lunch at the campus cafeteria, constructed to accommodate up to 20,000 students at the same time. The facility was indeed impressive in its sheer size, and there were hundreds of students entering and exiting the building in a very efficient manner.

















Our students were quite proactive in getting to know the Zhejiang students, so much, in fact, that some of the Chinese undergraduates rode back to our hotel to spend the evening with our students.

First full day in Hangzhou

Sunday, our first full day in Hangzhou, started with a great breakfast buffet on the seventh floor of the hotel. Then the group departed for a walk around the West Lake, located directly across from the Lakeview Hotel. The weather was pleasantly warm with sunny skies, quite an improvement over the prior twenty rainy days. With these improved conditions on a non-work day for the locals, the lakefront was packed with hundreds of people.






















After this brief excursion, the group traveled to Zhejiang University, home to the top entrepreneurship program in China. Gangfeng Zhang, Associate Professor in the School of Management, lectured to both our Kelley students and Zhejiang students on the topic of "Cultural Factors for Managing Businesses in China." He offered multiple examples of differences in communication, leadership styles, organizational behavior, and contractual negotiations and obligations. In particular he emphasized the focus on relationships and intuitive, moral decision making in the Chinese context and how this has posed challenges to Westerners unaccustomed to conducting business in such a manner. The students also learned about difficulties with cross-cultural language exchange, including differences in pausing when speaking, inflection, and body language.







When the lecture concluded, a small group of Kelley students stayed behind to have dinner with Zhejiang students. The remaining students returned to the hotel, and many of them ventured out to the surrounding area to enjoy dinner and do some shopping.

The staff from Kelley were treated to an exquisite dinner by Zhong-Ming Wang, Professor and Executive Dean of the School of Management at Zhejiang University. Professor Wang will be coming to the Kelley School of Business in April as part of a visiting delegation.

Our arrival to Pu Dong Airport and travel to Hangzhou

After a four hour delay at O'Hare, the group boarded the plane for Shanghai, and nearly fourteen hours later arrived safely at the Pu Dong Airport. The massive facility was eerily quiet and devoid of the intense activity one would expect to find at an international airport; successful passage through immigration and customs was surprisingly easy and very fast.




Once luggage was claimed and money exchanged, the group boarded a bus for a three hour ride to the city of Hangzhou. Our first steps outside the airport were filled with the smell of Shanghai - stifling air pollution that literally took your breath away. As we drove down the highway toward Hangzhou, a heavy haze hung over everything in sight, with no visible dissipation for the duration of the trip.



Hangzhou, a bustling city of three million inhabitants, offered quite the sights and sounds to welcome us last night. This growing city was filled with activity, hundreds of thousands of people walking down the streets, and dozens of storefront shops bustling with activity. After meandering through the city's maze of streets for over half an hour, we finally arrived at the Lakeview Hotel, located directly across from the beautiful West Lake.

Patiently waiting at O'Hare

Here we are sitting at Gate K12 going into what was supposed to be the final hour of our layover. The flight from Indy to Chicago was right on time, but now we have heard our departing flight to Shanghai has been delayed for another three hours. Considering we left Bloomington at 4:30 am EST, it will be nearly 12 hours before we finally start on our way to China. The group, needless to say, is already looking somewhat fatigued and will certainly look even more exhausted as the day progresses.

The 14 hour international flight will hopefully offer a much needed opportunity to sleep, especially now that we will likely not make it to Hangzhou until late Saturday night.

Almost ready for departure to China

In just a few short days, eighteen students and five staff chaperones will leave for a ten day trip to China as part of Kelley's Emerging Economies course. With the recent global economic shifts slowing growth in China and leading to declines in areas such as the manufacturing sector, the timing of the trip will expose students to a rapidly changing picture of this economic powerhouse. As consumerism has slowed across the world in developed countries, China will likely see its GDP grow only in the single digits, a significant slow down from the double digits over the past several years. Yet, China, along with selected other Southeast Asian countries, appears to be a bright spot, avoiding the severe drops in GDP experienced elsewhere across the globe. Nevertheless, China too is feeling the grip of this new economic reality. Just this past week, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao stated that this will be a difficult year for the country:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7925347.stm

So what have students been learning in the Emerging Economies course to get them prepared for this first-hand experience? For the first half of the semester, Bruce Jaffe, professor of business economics and public policy, and various guest lecturers drawn from Kelley's top-notch faculty have been teaching students about emerging economies and the unique issues facing them in the shifting global economic climate. Students have also been attending intensive language and culture workshops focused on the specific country to which they would be traveling.

Tonight the students will join their chaperones for a dinner in the Tudor Room of the Indiana Memorial Union, providing an opportunity for them to get acquainted before before flying out early Friday morning.

Once the group arrives at the airport in Shanghai on Saturday afternoon, they will board a bus for a short ride to the city of Hangzhou, located approximately three driving hours from Shanghai. After an evening of much needed rest, the group will take a tour of the city with students and staff from Zhejiang University. Starting that evening and continuing on through Tuesday evening, students will visit various businesses in the city and hear lectures from business leaders on topics ranging from trans-cultural management to international project management.

Then on Wednesday morning, the group will head back to Shanghai and spend the duration of the trip there. In Shanghai, the group will get to tour cultural sites including the Bund, Nan Jing Road, Yu Garden, and Chenghuang Temple. Business-focused visits will include Nielsen, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Praxis Language Ltd., Fountainvest, and Ernst & Young. Students will also be treated to dinner on Friday by Kelley alumni Simon Goe and Stephen Hwang at Yan-an Hotel.

Then on Saturday evening the group will head back to the United States and attempt to adjust to life one again after the whirlwind tour of these two Chinese cities. As past travels to emerging economies have revealed, the students will remember this unique experience for the rest of their lives.