Ideas Abound at WSU Entrepreneurship Forum

PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies wrapped up its second Sino American Forum on Entrepreneurship and Management today (Aug. 5) in Pullman.
 
Jerman Rose, director for the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, led the two-day forum that included visiting scholars from Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, China, where the inaugural forum was held.

“This was an unusual research forum because it wasn’t focused on any single discipline. It was about intelligent people discussing a wide range of ideas and learning from each other,” Rose said. “And unlike many forums, there was a buzz among the group the whole time. It was high-energy with lots of discussion and new relationships being developed.”

Research areas covered included management, marketing management, strategy, operations management, international business, small business management and more.

 

“The goal here was to put forward research that can assist with core entrepreneurship programs at the two universities,” said Zhang Ningjun, vice dean for the School of Business Administration at SWUFE. “We discussed how to develop SMEs (small- and medium-size entrepreneurships) as well as the role of government in the growth of SMEs.”  

 

As a professor of business administration, the matter of SMEs in China and America is its own issue, Ningjun said, “so we pay attention to this, too.”

A scholar at WSU in 2000, Ningjun was happy to be back on the Palouse. “The smallest details of my life here are still clear in my mind. I can’t describe how happy I am,” she said. “I feel at home.”


Contact between WSU and SWUFE was initiated in 1998 through WSU economics graduate Boqing Wang. WSU began by hosting two faculty members from the Chinese university and has since hosted about 10 of its faculty members. WSU faculty has also visited and lectured at SWUFE and has received six MBA students from the university.

The Chinese scholars visited Microsoft Corp. in Redmond and an apple orchard near Mattawa before arriving in Pullman for a tour of campus and the Palouse. The group plans to visit Cougar Crest Winery in Walla Walla today before returning to Seattle for its departure.

Next Story

Recent News

Improved AI process could better predict water supplies

A new computer model developed by WSU researchers uses a better artificial intelligence process to measure snow and water availability more accurately across vast distances in the West.