Working across borders: X-Culture prepares Ilitch School students for a global workforce

Business today operates on a global level, with many teams spanning time zones, countries, or continents. The X-Cultures program, offered at the Mike Ilitch School of Business, seeks to prepare students for these realities in the workforce.

X-Cultures is an organization that connects students, faculty members, businesses, and researchers across the world to foster connections and solve problems. A business presents a real-world issue that they are having, and students across the globe work together in virtual groups to solve these problems.

Gary Shields, associate professor of teaching in management at the Ilitch School, incorporated X-Cultures into his Organizational Behaviors class, as the honors student component. In addition to the regular coursework, honors students had to complete the X-Cultures assignments, working with other business students from around the world.

"X-Cultures recruited companies for us and in the fall of last year we tried it with honors students," said Shields. "We had one from Italy, one from India, and one from England. These are real companies. This is not reading a case study in a book that happened five years ago, and this is not hypothetical. These are global businesses."

Shields recognizes how valuable international education is for business students. Every year he leads the "Global Business Experience: England," a faculty-led study abroad program that takes students to the United Kingdom and leads them on company tours to learn how businesses operate overseas.

This international perspective has worked its way into Shield's regular curriculum as well.

"I think our Wayne State students benefit when we expose them to international business in whatever way we can," said Shields. "I gave students a class project to pitch a restaurant proposal. After the project I asked each student how they thought their proposals would go over in a foreign country, where they have different norms around food. This example demonstratesto our students the need to be aware of the global business environment."

Shields was recognized with X-Culture's 2026 Best Professor Award, as one of the professors who executed the program with quality and care, and for the outcomes that his students experienced.

"Congratulations to Gary Shields on receiving the X-Culture Best Professor Award, a remarkable recognition of his dedication to student success and innovative teaching," said Virginia Franke Kleist, Dean of the Ilitch School. "At the Ilitch School of Business, we are well aware that an international lens is critical for all of our students to experience. Through his participation in the X-Culture project, Professor Shields provides our students with invaluable opportunities to collaborate in a virtual space with peers from around the world, solve real business challenges, and develop the global mindset that is essential in today's interconnected economy. We are proud to see his commitment to experiential learning recognized on an international stage."

Students in Shield's class-like Angela Arcabascio, a rising senior studying marketing with departmental honors-reported positive experiences working with their teams, despite the challenge of communicating across time zones and cultures.

"I worked with people from Nigeria, Syria, France and Hungary. We had people from different time zones, and we worked together online to write a 25-page paper analyzing the company," said Arcabascio. "It was really eye-opening. It showed me how valuable communication is. In my group we had a WhatsApp group chat that we communicated through and did zoom meetings to ask questions about the project and about each other."

Arcabascio's group project focused on WeGoo, an Italian rideshare company. They conducted a S.W.O.T. analysis, breaking down the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, and presented the company with their findings along with suggestions to improve. She felt that this experience was formative for her future career.

"I had a really good experience, all my group members were really nice people, and all of them had the same mindset. They wanted to get the project done well, and for it to go smooth," said Arcabascio. "Having global interactions with people is really important, and this program puts you in a great position to communicate globally. Working on a project that forces you to analyze a company deeply prepares you for what's next."

Shields hopes to expand the program so that more students can have an international business experience without having to travel.

"I would recommend anyone do it, no matter what degree program you are in," said Arcabascio. "I feel like it's such a unique experience and gives you a great item to put on your resume. Working across time zones and cultures is a great benefit, and a great skill to develop before starting your career where you may be expected to do so on a daily basis."