Prof. Dr. Désirée van Gorp recently visited MIP Politecnico di Milano to establish a partnership with Nyenrode Business Universiteit on different levels. MIP is the international business school of Politecnico di Milano. As part of the agreement, Professor Van Gorp is now a Visiting Professor at the prestigious university in Italy. Throughout the visit, she delivered several seminars and lectures to MIP’s MSc and MBA students.
Désirée van Gorp was also invited to deliver a seminar regarding her research to MIP’s faculty and PhD candidates. Désirée about her visit: ‘I thoroughly enjoyed teaching at MIP Politecnico di Milano. It was a pleasure to spend an intensive day with the specialized master students; diving into the topic of innovation & digitalization, global sourcing, offshoring and outsourcing . We discussed the seven myths of global sourcing and the responsibility of companies in making value chains sustainable.’
Global sourcing
Together they worked on building a business case for global sourcing as part of an overall growth strategy. Désirée says: ‘We ended the day with the global sourcing business game that brought out the best in this interactive group. The same game I played for over two hours with the MBA students and it turned out to be a very intensive and joyful time during which the group was heavily infected with the global sourcing virus. Different teams were creatively seeking coalitions with each other.’ Désirée also lectured MBA students a masterclass on the topic of innovation and digitalization.
Exchange
The Nyenrode Professor has also agreed to co-research with Prof. Lucia Tajoli from MIP on the topic of global sustainable value chains and international trade. Moving forward, Nyenrode and MIP will also collaborate in the fields of student exchange and incorporating more professors at faculty exchange level. Van Gorp ends: ‘The last day I had the opportunity to discuss different research topics with my colleagues at MIP. I can’t wait to be back again at MIP, what a great institute it is.’