Industry Initiated Internationalization or JTH goes to China, A Case Study

"Students should learn Chinese" was the trigger words from the industry "because 99% of all promotional materials sold in Sweden come from China". This seemed unrealistic at first, but eventually developed the idea that students should visit China to meet the business community in the East and what today is everyday life for many Western companies. This paper describes a project carried out during 2009 when about 30 students at the “Graphic Design and Web Development” programme at the School of Engineering, Jönköping University went to China to study for about five weeks. The goals of the project are to: create conditions to increase the employability of students, increase opportunities for active collaboration between students and industry, stimulate students' creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, and promote understanding and respect for other values, e.g. cultures and traditions. The students were given a long list of different tasks, one of them was to do a specific task for a Swedish company; finding new and interesting products that could be used as giveaways while others were asked to negotiate better prices from alternative providers. They worked in small groups of about three people and all groups had unique projects. The principals of the project were all wholesalers of promotional products. The result was a great success; all groups did present complete and precise calculations for their products and it is notable that the students after the trip have become both more discerning and more likely to continue their careers in an international environment. The percentage of students going abroad to study were much higher among them who participated in the China project than among them who didn’t.