The Virtual Business Professional (VBP) is a project for students and instructors around the world who want to engage in a global virtual team experience with students and instructors from other universities and other countries. The primary purpose of the VBP is to help students develop virtual and cross-cultural collaboration skills using state-of-the-art collaboration tools.
As a student, you will be able to add valuable skills to your resume. You will learn how to communicate effectively in virtual work environments, use social and AI-driven collaboration tools, navigate cross-cultural team processes, and hone your leadership skills!
Learning Objectives
This project emphasizes the development of critical-thinking, communication, and virtual and cross-cultural team-building skills among students with the following specific goals:
- Learn how to collaborate in global virtual teams;
- Introduce students to a virtual collaboration platform;
- Allow students to reflect on and assess their effectiveness in the virtual collaboration;
- Teach students leadership skills in virtual and cross-cultural collaboration projects;
- Provide students an opportunity to examine, analyze, and assess real company challenges and identify recommendations.
Comments from VBP Participants, Professors, and Company Leaders
"Participating in VBP 2020 was an inspiring experience. The teams that worked on a market entry strategy for AUDI’s UTR looked at the project from many different perspectives and generated many new insights for us. Their results are very helpful and are being used for the development of our market entry strategies.
I’d be happy to bring another project in the future.”
Company Leader, Audi
“Thanks to Jolanta Aritz, Peter Cardon, and Carolin Fleischmann for coordinating this truly global virtual team project and for creating this intercultural business communication experience for our students! This project emphasized the development of critical-thinking, communication, team-building, and virtual work skills.
This year, student teams chose to tackle one of the real-world business challenges: Online corporate reputation for Google or Starbucks; Market entry for Audi’s UTR into either Denmark or Finland.
Happy to report that (18) of my students at UD received this certificate today for successfully completing the Virtual Business Professional Project with over (500) students in (90) teams, (19) professors from (16) universities in (7) countries (Finland, France, Germany, India, Lithuania, Spain, USA).”
Associate Professor, University of Dayton
"At the start students thought that it will be extremely difficult, but later they recognized that virtual cooperation is real thing and the virus cannot destroy this channel."
Professor, Vilnius University
"Compassion, empathy, being considerate of others' situation, etc., are what I have heard from my students. I think these are what students learned this time more so than the last time in VBP."
Professor, University of Dayton