Spanning the GLOBE

Ole Strömgren, recently retired from the Copenhagen Business School (CBS). Looking back on his career, there is one thing to him that stands out as his greatest accomplishment. He founded the GLOBE program in 2005 with Gordon Cheung of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). “GLOBE is the best thing I’ve been involved with in my whole academic career,” he says.

GLOBE (Global Learning Opportunities in Business Education) is a collaborative undergraduate business program on three continents—Copenhagen Business School (CBS) in Europe, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in Asia, and the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School in North America. A cohort (or batch, in GLOBE terms) of 54 students—currently 18 from each institution—spends the fall semester of the junior year in Copenhagen, followed by a semester in Hong Kong. Summer is available for internships with the final GLOBE semester in North Carolina. Students complete their last undergraduate semester on their home campus.

“The idea of a fairly select group of students studying together at all three schools over an extended period of time sounded very attractive, and the possibility of the students being able to form networks early in their careers sounded seductive,” recalls Strömgren. During a visit to Hong Kong, he had been invited to meet with Cheung, who had already initiated the global business studies program at CUHK. Cheung wanted to add GLOBE as a “truly global curriculum” with an opportunity for students to build long-term relationships on three continents. “Students should learn about local cultures and