Introductions
About Ben!
Hi my name is Ben Weber I am an aspiring MBA Candidate. I came to Chapman primarily by chance, in my undergrad I applied to a handful of schools and forgot my portal password to all of those schools except for Chapman. So when I got accepted I just felt like it was meant to be. I decided to stay at Chapman and pursue my masters in business because of the incredible connections I had with my professors and my desire to continue learning. I am pursuing a concentration in Analytics as it is one of my weaknesses and I want to turn it into one of my strengths. I find Analytics extremely exciting and this has made it easy for me to continue pursuing it in my Masters program. Outside of the program, I love to go surfing, snowboard rock, climbing and spend quality time with my friends and girlfriend.
About Ally!
Hi I’m Ally Long and I am about to enter my second year of the Full-Time MBA program here at Chapman. I received my undergraduate degree from Chapman in Business Administration as well in 2021 and loved the school so much, I wasn’t quite ready to leave. My concentration is in marketing and I am looking to work in community relations for a professional sports team. I just finished up my last season of being on the women’s water polo team. Sports have taken up most of my time during summer vacations so I am excited to be going to Scandinavia and leaving the US for the first time.
About Katie!
Hi! I’m Katie Cha and I am finishing up the 4+1 Accelerated MBA program with a bang going to Scandinavia! I graduated from Chapman in undergrad as a Business Administration major with an emphasis in marketing, and am hoping to pursue marketing in the esports industry after this trip. During quarantine, I spent a lot of time with computers and games, which gave me the perfect opportunity to learn more about the industry and ultimately help me decide that I wanted to work in this industry. I have never been to Europe before, so I’m very excited to go for the first time!
Learning Objectives
Collectively as a group, none of us have had the opportunity to travel to Europe before this. We are so excited to visit Sweden and get a glimpse of the similarities and differences in the way business is conducted compared with the US. Ben has previously worked with the Swedish company “GutMagnific” who he worked with in undergrad. This would be an amazing chance to meet with them in person.
When preparing for our trip, we all read about different Swedish companies deciding to halt production and some even pull out completely from operations in Russia in support of those in Ukraine. It will be interesting to see if any of the companies that we visit have any commentary about their plans in Russia. Dr. Coskuner-Balli informed us that it is very common in European countries to ask very blunt questions about conversations that us in the US try to avoid having. It would not be surprising if conversations about their stance get brought up. Since Sweden is the most sustainable country in the world, we are all really looking forward to how these companies run their operations with this in mind. We will be able to see this first hand when we visit Volvo and from just walking around different clothing stores.
Along with this, we are interested in the difference in social media trends between the United States and Scandinavia. Social media applications use location-based data to make suggestions and alter feeds to show users more appropriate information and suggestions based on the country they are in. We are interested to see how our social media feeds will change, whether it be different promotional material based on location or even if the content we see will change outside of our normal followings. Location-based data has become a pivotal part of mobile marketing since its creation, and marketers grasp every potential user in the area to ensure that their brand is being widespread.
