2017-1a Winners

A Special Note on the 2017-1a Track

Normally, we select the winners of a semester, not of a track. Accordingly, normally, we would be selecting the Best Team of 2017-1, not of the “early” or “late” track of that round. However, 2017-1a is special. It is part of our experimental study into the crowd-sourced decision making (more on this research stream here).

2017-1a was randomly selected for the “competition” experimental condition and thus we have a separate 2017-1a Best Team award that comes with a set of $500 travel stipends for each of the the members of the winning team to attend the 2017 X-Culture Global Symposium.*

The Winner Selection Process

A total of 701 MBA students, undergraduate business students, and non-student contestants from 28 universities in 15 countries on all 5 continents enrolled in the 2017-1a track of the X-Culture competition. Of those, 594 passed the Readiness Test and successfully completed the project, the vast majority competing in global virtual teams, about a hundred people competing in collocated teams, and a few dozen people competing individually.

A total of 127 reports were submitted in the 2017-1a round of the X-Culture competition.

The reports were sent out for evaluation to a large group of International Business experts, mainly International Business professors and coaches from around the world (31 people from 16 countries).  Each report was independently evaluated by 4 to 7 experts along multiple dimensions, such as report creativity, clarity, viability of the ideas, style, as well as evaluation of each report section. The experts also provided qualitative feedback.

Based on the expert evaluations, 10 best reports (complete list below) with nearly perfect scores were selected and sent for additional evaluation to the X-Culture International Award Committee comprised of 9 International Business experts representing 8 different countries. They re-read each finalist report one more time and provided their recommendations as to the winners.

Based on these 9 additional sets of evaluations, 1 winning team was selected.

 

Unlike it often happens, this time there was a remarkable agreement on which team won the competition. 7 out of 9 Committee members ranked the winning team #1 and the other two ranked it #2. Based on the consolidated rankings, the winning team was full 1.6 points ahead of the nearest competitor (normally we see a gap of 0.2-0.4 points). Moreover, the inter-rater agreement on the ranking of the winning team was nearly perfect.

The Winners and the Finalists are listed below.

We are planning to interview the members of the finalist teams to produce an educational film based on their tips and insights into how to write a winning international business report.


THE WINNERS OF THE 2017-1A X-CULTURE COMPETITION

The reports can be download here  icon-download 

1st Place: Team 61 (Undergraduate students, global virtual team)

Client: Sacona

  • Nicole Blais, Instructor: Alexander Assouad, USA
  • Courtney L. Crawford, Instructor: Rachel Elizabeth Sturm, USA
  • Ramitpal Lalria, Instructor: Leigthon Wilks Canada,
  • Alberto Buzali Berner, Instructor: Julio Cesar Martinez Suarez, Mexico
  • Max Winterton, Instructor: Esha Mendiratta,  Netherland/United Kingdom
  • Seonah Kim, Kazakhstan (dropped out)

 

FINALISTS (sorted by the team number)

 

Team 16

Client: Forcier

  • Claraliz Heráldez León, Instructor: José Vargas-Hernández Mexico
  • Zako Bashir Isse, Instructor: Ursula Ott UK
  • Ivan Camilo Fernandez Bermudez, Instructor: Gaston Fornes Spain
  • Patricia Pires dos Santos Pereira , Instructor: Esha Mendiratta Netherland
  • Antoniette Abel , Instructor: Samuel Yaw Akomea Ghana
  • Stephen Gutierrez , Instructor: Diana Gomez USA

 

Team 24

Client: Plastic Revolutions

  • Andrew Wilkins , Instructor: Abrahim Soleimani USA
  • Samuel Allard , Instructor: Feng Zhang USA
  • Ani Rose Chemilian , Instructor: Elham Marzi Canada
  • Carson Kennedy , Instructor: Berit Sund Norway
  • Sidhant Sharma , Instructor: Sumati Varma India
  • Franklin Hayford , Instructor: Samuel Yaw Akomea Ghana

 

Team 41

Client: Plastic Revolutions

  • Joseph P. Blazek , Instructor: Abrahim Soleimani USA
  • Nicholas A. Fulks , Instructor: Luis Torres USA
  • Shannon Marie Kelsall , Instructor: Elham Marzi Canada
  • Luca Palmieri , Instructor: Berit Sund Norway
  • Salomey Tawiah , Instructor: Samuel Yaw Akomea Ghana

 

Team 53

Client: Plastic Revolutions

  • Alexandria J. Schlorman , Instructor: Rachel Elizabeth Sturm USA
  • Jasleen Sihota , Instructor: Leigthon Wilks Canada
  • Irin Arayaprayoon , Instructor: Berit Sund Norway
  • Partrick Peter Anukur , Instructor: Moses Bazibu Uganda

 

Team 57

Client: Voyager Study Abroad

  • Tanner McCoon tanner.mccoon@gmail.com Abrahim Soleimani USA
    Brittany N. Corporal corporal.3@wright.edu Rachel Elizabeth Sturm USA
    Komil Rehill kkrehill@ucalgary.ca Leigthon Wilks Canada
    Olivia Bloom bloom.olivia.77@gmail.com Berit Sund Norway
    Stephen Aboagye saboagye95@yahoo.com Samuel Yaw Akomea Ghana

 

Team 63

Client: Plastic Revolutions

  • Oswaldo Heguigorri, Instructor: Feng Zhang USA
  • Grace K. Lail , Instructor: Rachel Elizabeth Sturm USA
  • Roman Suver , Instructor: Leigthon Wilks Canada
  • Arturo Ancona Velasco , Instructor: Julio Cesar Martinez Suarez Mexico
  • Felecia Nelson , Instructor: Tolulope Bewaji Jamaica

 

Team 80

Client: Plastic Revolutions

  • Jacqueline Flores , Instructor: Feng Zhang
  • Sarina I. Caudy-Marquez , Instructor: Rachel Elizabeth Sturm
  • Anastasia Kudrya , Instructor: Leigthon Wilks
  • Cinthia Stephanie Saucedo Perez , Instructor: Luis A. Barroso
  • Kwadwo Afreh-Bempah , Instructor: Samuel Yaw Akomea

 

Team 86

Client: Sacona

  • Anker Albert , Instructor: Berit Sund Norway
  • Jeffrey Cheuk-Fai Chan , Instructor: Elham Marzi Canada
  • Miroslav Dimitrov , Instructor: Luis Torres USA
  • Allie E. Tucker , Instructor: Rachel Elizabeth Sturm USA
  • Sheriff Osei Adomako , Instructor: Samuel Yaw Akomea Ghana

 

Team 92

Client: Unplag

  • Kelsey Sarpong , Instructor: Luis Torres USA
  • Katherine E. Triplett , Instructor: Rachel Elizabeth Sturm USA
  • Valene Baker , Instructor: Tolulope Bewaji Jamaica
  • María Luisa Anaya Rosas , Instructor: José Vargas-Hernández Mexico
  • Michael Amankwah , Instructor: Samuel Yaw Akomea Ghana
  • Jacqueline Berg , Instructor: Diana Gomez USA
  • Colin Whitfield , Instructor: Diana Gomez USA

*The travel stipends are non-transferable, non-refundable, and contingent upon the winning team member attending the Symposium. In other words, only team members who attend the Symposium will get the $500 travel stipends.