发展中国家成Y世代商业新丁练兵场

    肖恩•加德纳是宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院（at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania）MBA二年级学生，他曾利用寒假假期时间赴卢旺达，在这个经历了史上最大规模组织变革的国家进行体验式学习。今年夏天，他将加入麦肯锡公司（McKinsey），从事管理工作，这也他职业生涯的第一个挑战。届时,他在卢旺达学习到的经验将会派上用场。

    加德纳和其他26名同学一起亲身体验了卢旺达的历史转折。它堪称近年来令人印象最深刻的历史变迁。沃顿商学院管理学教授凯瑟琳•克莱恩说，就在不到二十年前，卢旺达还发生过几十万人惨遭同胞屠杀的惨剧。而如今，内战结束后首次进行的总统选举过去了不到十年，卢旺达的商业和旅游业已经相当繁荣。卢旺达在《世界银行2011年全球企业经营环境调查》（the World Bank's 2011 Doing Business survey）中的排名已经从6年前的第158位飙升至第4位。

    加德纳称：“我最终的毕业设计项目主题也和卢旺达有关。我能将我学习的管理课程中的原则直接运用到卢旺达的案例中去。”

    学生和年轻员工经常会赴海外获取国际工作经验，体验不同地方的生活，同时丰富自己的履历。近些年来，大学、非盈利机构和私企都将国际项目扩展到了发展中国家。学生和员工能够有机会体验这些国家正在发生的急剧变革，同时将他们在课堂上学习到的技能运用于实践。

    哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）从2011年开始要求其全部900名新生在哥斯达黎加、越南等11个国家中选择一个，进行实地浸入式考察。沃顿商学院也于去年启动了全球模块课程项目，包括在印度举办的医疗卫生课程和在以色列举办的创新课程。

    其他几所商学院的学生以及大型公司的员工也开始寻求机会，在发展中国家磨练自己的商业技能，以便在内战、贫困和资源有限等极端环境中验证他们在课堂和会议中学到的理论知识。

    然而，有观点认为，这种考察与学术性旅行差不多，不过是打着学习的幌子游山玩水。但加德纳表示，他们确实玩得很开心，但“作为商学院学生，即使是访问一处大猩猩养育所，我们也能观察到，当地人是如何将旅游业作为发展经济的一个关键组成部分来开发旅游项目的。”

    对克莱恩教授来说，有机会将课堂知识运用于现实世界的吸引力要远大于短期体验项目和有趣的旅游景点。

    克莱恩称：“在我的课程里，我们研究偏见、歧视、组织变革和愿景进行研究。所有这些都可以在卢旺达找到。”    

    在卢旺达这类国家能够接触到新兴经济体的鲜活经验和不断演变的情况。同时，这类国家还能提供接触高管和政治领袖的机会，这一点在伦敦或者柏林是不可能的。沃顿商学院的学生在卢旺达会见了该国的国防部部长。部长谈到了曾经互为仇敌的胡图人（Hutus）和图西人（Tutsis）在军队中得以融合。主管性别平等的部长和学生们探讨了性别平等的重要性，尤其是在这个很多男人被屠杀或者关进监狱的国家里。

    When Sean Gardner faces his first management challenge at McKinsey this summer, he will be able to call on his experience studying in a country that has undergone one of the greatest organizational changes in history. Gardner, a second-year M.B.A. student at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, spent part of his winter break in Rwanda.

    Along with 26 other students, Gardner explored what is likely the most impressive turnaround story in a generation. Less than 20 years after hundreds of thousands of people were murdered by their countrymen and a decade since the first post-civil war presidential elections, Rwanda has become a thriving place for business and tourism, according to Katherine J. Klein, a management professor at Wharton, who led the class. In the World Bank's 2011 Doing Business survey, Rwanda ranked 45, up from 158 six years ago.

    "It ended up being a capstone project for me," Gardner says. "I was able to directly apply the principals of the management courses I took to Rwanda's story."

    Students and young workers frequently spend some time abroad to gain international work experience, try out living in a new place, and build their resumes. In recent years, though, universities, non-profits, and private employers have expanded their international programs to developing nations. These countries often offer students and workers a chance to see drastic change as it is happening and put the skills they are learning in class into practice.

    Since 2011, Harvard Business School has required that all 900 of its incoming students do a field immersion class in one of 11 countries, ranging from Costa Rica to Vietnam. Wharton's Global Modular Courses, also started last year, offer courses on healthcare in India and innovation in Israel.

    Students at several other business schools, as well as employees at large organizations, are also looking to the developing world to hone their skills by looking at how lessons learned in the classroom or boardroom hold up in the extreme situations of civil war, poverty, and limited resources.

    Although some argue that these trips are little more than academic tourism, a chance for students to vacation under the guise of learning, Gardner says that they did have fun, but even when visiting a gorilla refuge, "as business school students, we see how they are developing tourism as a vital part of their economy."

    And for Klein, the short time frame and tempting tourist distractions are outweighed by the chance to show how classroom lectures apply in the real world.

    "In my discipline, we do research on prejudice, discrimination, organizational change, vision. These are all there in Rwanda," Klein says.

    Besides the exposure to the raw and evolving lessons of emerging economies, countries like Rwanda offer access to executives and political leaders that would be impossible to find in London or Berlin. Wharton students in Rwanda met with the nation's minister of defense, who spoke about the integration of Hutus and Tutsis, once bitter enemies, into the military. The minister of gender discussed the importance of equality in a country where many men were slaughtered or are in prison.