Alejandro Izaga is quite familiar with communicating from the perspective of different languages and cultures.

Arkadiusz Mironko, assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship, presents X-Culture certificates to students (left to right) Betsy Roberts of Arcanum, Ohio, Thomas Williams of Fountain City, Indiana, Alejandro Izaga of Gasteiz, Alava, Spain, and Joao Vitor de Lima of Curitiba, Brazil. Denise Smith, dean of the IU East School of Business and Economics, joined the certificate presentation in the Hayes Hall classroom.

The Indiana University East junior is a business major from Spain. He’s also an all-conference defender on the Red Wolves’ men’s soccer team, which has a big international presence on its roster with players from Brazil, England, Mexico, Greece, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and the Caribbean island of Dominica.

It’s as essential for teammates to be on the same page in communications and working toward a common goal on the soccer pitch as it is for businesses on an international stage–no matter what the main language or dialect a student speaks or understands.

Working as an international team is the premise of the annual X-Culture Global Collaboration Project, which connects students into cohorts to create a real-world business plan for a company.

The cohorts are made up of five to eight students who are randomly chosen and meet virtually for about two months. “I have been fortunate to be part of a hardworking and competent group,” Izaga said. “Everyone has taken this work very seriously and I think we have completed a great project.”

Senior Betsy Roberts of Arcanum, Ohio, said the overall goal is to devise viable solutions to an issue that an international business is facing. “It’s (also) discovering ways to work together despite speaking different languages and living in different time zones,” she said.

For instance, England is five hours ahead of Richmond, Greece is six, India is 10.5 and Japan is 14. So, a Zoom meeting for cohort members at 2:30 p.m. in Tokyo would take place at 12:30 a.m. for students attending IU East.

“Not only were we able to build team skills through developing relationships and working together, but also by working through the challenges that come with being dispersed around the world,” Roberts said. “Time zones, ways of communicating, and other work and school priorities were obstacles that everyone had to deal with, but they also made the team stronger and gave us a sense of responsibility to one another.”

Every year, X-Culture connects 3,000 students from over 100 universities around the world.

Izaga said the experience taught him two essential things. “The first is that a company that tries to globalize must do a very extensive and professional research of what market it wants to address. A false step or poor planning can bring great consequences for the company,” he said. “The second is how you work in a group composed of people from different countries and cultures.”

Organization was paramount, Izaga said, including outlining what roles each student would play and when the group would meet. The cohort members also had to decide, he said, “what happens if someone does not meet expectations with their part of the work.”

In other words, they must depend on each other and pull their own weight.

The experience was fulfilling, Roberts said. Students learned from each other. “It gave us a chance to show the knowledge we have gained from school and put it into use in a real global setting,” she said. “X-Culture was a business challenge that allowed for a team’s creativity to shine. Working with teammates from around the world was a truly unique experience.”

IU East has taken part in the project since 2017 under the leadership of Arkadiusz Mironko, assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship.

Mironko teaches the International Business Environment class at IU East. All of the students from the on-campus class take part in X-Culture. Dozens of undergraduate and graduate students from IU East have successfully completed the course, he notes. The participants this fall from IU East were given X-Culture certificates at a ceremony on November 18 by Denise S. Smith, the dean of the IU East School of Business and Economics.

The pandemic led to lower numbers of students participating this school year. It also created good global learning experiences, Mironko said. “Working comfortably with people across the world in the present environment certainly is so much more relevant since the pandemic ensued.”