CKGSB’s 10-year partnership with University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business is a wonderful event that continues to benefit both schools, said Teng Bingsheng, Associate Professor of Strategic Management at CKGSB and the Associate Dean of CKGSB’s European Campus.
CKGSB’s 10-year partnership with University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business is a wonderful event that continues to benefit both schools, said Teng Bingsheng, Associate Professor of Strategic Management at CKGSB and the Associate Dean of CKGSB’s European Campus.
“I’ve done a lot of research into strategic alliances, so I know that it is not easy to maintain a working relationship over a 10-year period,” Professor Teng said during a June 24 conference in the US capital that celebrated the decade-long CKGSB-Darden alliance. “It’s quite a miracle that this relationship has not only endured, but has actually flourished over the years, achieving great results for both schools,” Professor Teng said.
On hand for the parley, “Executive Insights on US-China Business: The Impact of Foreign Policies & Presidential Politics,” were 50 high-level Chinese CEOs and C-Suite executives completing their studies at Darden.
Mutual understanding
The event at the Ritz Carlton hotel commemorated how over the years, the CKGSB-Darden partnership has aimed to immerse US and Chinese executives in their respective business landscapes, with the aim of promoting mutual understanding and successful action.
A CKGSB-Darden venture last November saw groups of high-level Chinese executives in a custom Advanced Management Program combine a visit to Monticello, the Charlottesville, Virginia home of Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the US Declaration of Independence, with studies of organizational successes and failures related to growth and innovation. The program focused on innovation and driving business growth for Chinese CEOs, presidents and executives from a broad range of industries.
“I’ve left each of these engagements with a profound sense of wonder and excitement,” said Michael Lenox, Samuel L. Slover Professor of Business, Senior Associate Dean and Chief Strategy Officer at Darden. “The enthusiasm and desire to shape the world for the better is universal, be it from students from the US or from China or from other parts of the world.”
Professor Teng formerly served as a tenured Associate Professor of Strategic Management at nearby George Washington University, where he was a doctoral advisor and lead professor of the departmental doctoral program. He said he hoped the CKGSB-Darden partnership would benefit from Darden’s launching of a new state-of-the-art facility in Rosslyn, Virginia, in the Washington, DC area.
“With CKGSB developing our international strategy, covering the European market and the US market even more actively, and with Darden coming to Washington, DC, I think the two great schools are poised to form exemplary relationships among all business schools,” Professor Teng said.
“We look forward to having an even greater relationship in the future,” he said.
Good will
Other speakers included Grace Meng (pictured above), a Democratic US Congresswoman from New York State, who urged China to increase marketing and promotion of the good work it does, such as its efforts to fight global terrorism.
Promoting China’s good works would create “good will” in the West, said the congresswoman, who is serving her second term in the US House of Representatives and is the first Asian-American member of Congress from New York State. “That soft power can be very effective and influential later on, when other, more important decisions are being made, whether it’s foreign relations, military, or defense. It definitely has an impact.”
