The Georgia Tech Center for International Business Education and Research is accepting applications from companies seeking to develop markets in Costa Rica, Denmark and Japan with the assistance of MBA students at the university’s business school.

“Our projects are offered with an emphasis on small- and medium-sized companies, many of which are in a start-up mode and do not have many resources,” James Hoadley, associate director of Georgia Tech CIBER, told GlobalAtlanta. “Some are even born global, competing internationally from the moment that they begin.”

The Georgia Tech Consultancy Project was created in 2005 to meet the needs of companies seeking new markets as well as those of its MBA students, who have no international experience before entering program.

As much as 90 percent of an entering MBA class of 70 students may have had no international experience, he added. By focusing on opportunities offered in a foreign country, the students can apply the skills they are learning in the classroom to an international market and help a domestic company explore an international opportunity, he said.

Mr. Hoadley said that international entrepreneurialism is a growing trend for small- to medium-sized companies. Since the program was started in 2005, it has completed projects in four countries including Argentina, Costa Rica, Ireland and Singapore.

This year 16 students have worked on projects in Ireland and Costa Rica.

He included market penetration studies, analysis of markets and countries and plans for setting up distribution networks as examples of the projects in which the students have been involved on behalf of companies.

The Georgia Institute of Technology also has joined with Georgia State University and the University of Minnesota to offer a doctoral workshop in international entrepreneurship.

This program, according to Mr. Hoadley, is of increasing interest to scholars focused on the discovery and development of opportunities for new goods and services that cross national borders and comparisons of entrepreneurial activity in different countries.

For more information about the Georgia Tech Global Consultancy Project or the doctoral workshop in international entrepreneurship, Mr. Hoadley may be reached by email at james.hoadley@mgt.gatech.edu or by calling (404) 894-4379.

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James Hoadley – Georgia Tech Global Consultancy Project (404) 894-4379