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Goizueta hosts top Austrian business students
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For the past sixteen years, a group of Austrian Executive MBA students has spent two weeks at Goizueta Business School as part of the LIMAK (Linzer International Management Akademie) Johannes Kepler University Business School program. The twenty or so executive-level MBA students spend two weeks in Atlanta before site visits to Washington D.C. and New York. The Goizueta arm is managed by the Office of Executive Development.
“It’s like a mini MBA program,” explains Al Hartgraves, professor of accounting at Goizueta. “Although it covers many of the same topics covered in their courses [in Austria], it gives the participants a different perspective using different pedagogies.” While in the U.S., the students not only attend classes, they visit area companies and organizations such as UPS, The Home Depot, Lockheed, CNN, IBM, The Coca-Cola Company, Georgia QuickStart, and Chik-fil-A. (This year’s group also dropped by Worldbank in Washington D.C., the Austrian Trade Commission in New York City, as well as a half dozen other organizations.)
In addition to learning how business is run in the U.S., the students are also exposed at Emory to a more interactive approach to teaching than they are accustomed to in Austria, where class participation is not as heavily emphasized. This combination of new experiences helps expand the students’ knowledge base.
“I wanted an international experience, in a European way and also a U.S. context,” recalls Dr. Oliver Schauer of SCHACHINGER Logistik Holding GmbH & Co KG. Schauer was a LIMAK program participant in 2004. “For me, the LIMAK/Goizueta program has a multi-faceted value. It teaches you to manage priorities pragmatically and analytically, but also strengthens your confidence in your own abilities.”
About 70 to 80 percent of the program’s students are “corporate types,” notes Hartgraves. Another 20 to 25 percent come from the public sector. Historically, few women have participated in the program, but this past summer’s class included five women.
The average age of the students is in the low- to mid-30s. “It’s a quite sophisticated audience,” notes Hartgraves, who has taught on numerous occasions at the Austrian business school. “The program’s alumni are high potential folks in upper Austria. They’re the crème de la crème.”
While here, the students also have an active social agenda. This year’s trips included visits to an Atlanta Braves’ baseball game, Stone Mountain, and the King Center. Many of the participants also visited The Georgia Aquarium, CNN Center and other local attractions. “Experiencing the undisputed business and cultural center of the southeast, Atlanta gave me immense respect for the character of U.S. citizens—creative, supportive and full of resources,” recalled Schauer.
The collaborative efforts between the two schools will continue for the foreseeable future. Recently, Goizueta’s contract with the LIMAK Johannes Kepler University Business School was extended until 2010.
—Allison Shirreffs