CityU MBA participants visited South Korea for the Enterprise Diagnostic Residential Trip (R-trip) from 9th to 17th June 2019, working as a consultancy group for Chungnam Techno Park (CTP), a government-funded regional innovation hub located in Cheonan City nearby Seoul. Led by Prof. Kevin Chiang, MBA Director, students were divided into 3 teams and supervised by Prof. C. Min Han, Dr. Kim Kyoung Yong and Dr. Lee Daechang to work on the topics in the areas of marketing, human resource management, and the operations and services management respectively.
Learning from Korea’s Hi-tech Industries: Kia Motors and Samsung
To better understand Korean business culture and management styles, the group first visited Sohari Plant of Kia Motors at Gwangmyeong, South Korea's second-largest automobile manufacturer, followed by a visit to Samsung Digital City and Samsung Innovation Museum at Suwon to learn about their success stories.
Creativity + Teamwork = Performance
The President of CTP delivered his welcoming speech and introduced the CTP’s senior management to the CityU MBA group in the official kickoff meeting, followed by a tour of the Techno Park for the students to understand the services and functions of various buildings and facilities. During the visits, students grasped the opportunities to interview the managers and key executives of the three project domain areas and also the Park tenants to have an in-depth understanding of the organisation, as well as to identify critical issues of the projects.
To express our gratitude to CTP for hosting us, an appreciation dinner was arranged to thank the President and all the project sponsors for their time and effort in supporting our group.
Before presenting our findings to CTP on the final presentation, students have been working hard in sharing and rehearsal sessions to get feedback from supervisors and other members on how to refine the projects and presentations.
Pre-trip Preparations for the Real-life Consultancy Project
In fact, the R-trip preparation started way before students going to South Korea. The group paid a visit to Hong Kong Science Park and attended a project briefing session to meet with our supervisors to learn more about the industry background and the project scope respectively.
A Real-life Intercultural Consultancy Project
After months of pre-trip preparation in Hong Kong and a week of onsite field research in South Korea, students embraced cultural differences while working on the consultancy project and have successfully converged the findings by interacting with project sponsors and finally presented their recommendations to the CTP's senior management on the last day of the trip. The presentation ended with a round of applause from the CTP’s President and the management team showing their appreciation on the jobs well done by students.
About Chungnam Techno Park 충남테크노파크 (CTP)
Chungnam Techno Park was established in 1999 funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Chungcheongnam-do Provincial Government as a regional innovation base. Chungnam Techno Park has developed as one of the most exemplary institutions among 18 techno parks all over the country and it has established support systems for technology businesses with advanced business incubation and technical support service facilities while focusing on development of future growth engines, promotion of projects based on its own purposes and support to enhance competitiveness of local businesses.
