Who is engaging with whom?Internationalizing opportunities

for business schools inemerging economies

Dianne Lynne BevelanderRotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam,

Netherlands and Lulea University of Technology, Lulea, Sweden

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the globalization of Business Schools andpresent different strategies, issues and perspectives on how and why business schools are goingglobal. The paper explores various models for globalization, contrasts and integrates them, and thenpresents an approach to globalization that is within the reach of these smaller and less endowedschools.Design/methodology/approach – This paper reviews relevant literature and an analysis ofexchange programs amongst the world’s leading business schools. Different aspects of theglobalization of management education are discussed including internationalizing the curriculum,globalizing research agendas, and the impact of globalized competition.Findings – A framework has been developed that can be employed by business schools – especiallyin emerging economies – to internationalize themselves through their education and researchprograms. Recommendations are made for how business schools with limited resources can meet thechallenge of offering the internationally-oriented education experience increasingly demanded byemployers and students alike.Research limitations/implications – Limitations to this paper result from the use of FinancialTimes top 100 ranked business schools. Aside from weaknesses inherent the rankings methodology,the choice of these business schools excluded hundreds of high quality business schools around theworld – many of which are internationally recognized for quality. Furthermore, the methodology ofthe scanning of web sites of schools for types of collaboration agreements across borders might notgive the full picture of agreements betweens schools.Originality/value – Although a considerable amount has been written about the globalizationimperative facing business schools (with many illustrations of what could be considered best practice),there is a significant lack of information when it comes to the articulation of strategies andimplementation challenges facing smaller and less well endowed business schools that want toglobalize.

Keywords Globalization, Business schools, Emerging economies, Exchange programmes,Networks

Paper type Conceptual paper

1. IntroductionThe purpose of universities has long been debated. Recent critiques, fuelled by thelatest global financial and economic crisis, suggest that universities need to direct more

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available atwww.emeraldinsight.com/0951-354X.htm

Received 23 October 2011Accepted 7 November 2011

International Journal of EducationalManagementVol. 26 No. 7, 2012pp. 646-663r Emerald Group Publishing Limited0951-354XDOI 10.1108/09513541211263728

The author would like to acknowledge Professor Mike Page, Bentley University, for his helpfulcomments and suggestions. However, the author acknowledges that any remaining omissionsand errors are entirely her own.

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of their efforts to serving economic imperatives and the demands of the labor market.This idea is not new and as has been so eloquently stated by Nigel Biggar (2009)[1]:

(Universities) were never simply the child of an ivory-tower love of knowledge forknowledge’s sake. They were always partly fuelled by practical concerns, whether theconcerns of private individuals or of those with public responsibility [y] We shouldn’tidealize or over-moralize universities. Right from their medieval beginnings, they have servedprivate purposes and practical public purposes as well as the sheer amor scientiae.

Biggar (2009) further argues that three of the earliest university faculties – theology,law, and medicine – have always been oriented as much toward developing men ofpractice as to the pursuit of loftier intellectual ideas. As such, the demands that today’suniversity business schools focus on producing graduates capable of contributing tomeaningful economic, social, and environmental development in an unavoidablyglobalizing world is consistent with the core purpose and long tradition of universities.This demand creates certain globalizing or internationalizing imperatives for businessschools and business faculties. We all recognize that the impacts of globalization arefelt by the smallest of communities and enterprises. This means that business andmanagement educators must develop the international understanding and capabilitiesof their students if they are to contribute and compete globally. These are imperativesas much for emerging economy business schools as they are for those in the developedworld[2]. However, it is inevitable that business schools in the developing world facedifferent and greater challenges in their efforts to prepare their stakeholders for globalengagement. Strapped by resources, lacking in some key skills, and constrained bysmaller social networks, these schools do not have it as easy as their developed worldcounterparts. Yet all is not lost: there are strategies that can be implemented to acceleratetheir growth toward a global presence. These are the issues this paper addresses.

The paper begins with a discussion of the globalization imperative. The literatureon business school global strategy development is reviewed and integrated. Strategiesfor globalizing business programs that have been employed by numerous leadingbusiness schools, and endorsed by the international accreditation agencies, arediscussed and presented as a set of typologies. This discussion is amplified throughan analysis of the exchange relationships among The Financial Times top hundredfull-time MBA offering schools – among one another and with institutions outside ofthe ranked cluster. While the current circumstances of smaller business schools makeit unlikely that they can gain the sort of foothold in China or India that INSEAD orWharton can, a more comprehensive strategic framework for various business schooltypologies might enable them to meet the global demands of their client markets inemerging economies. The paper concludes with a summary of the key insights andwith recommendations for further research.

2. The globalization imperativeGlobalization has been described as the combined phenomena whereby people aremore globally connected than ever before through international travel andinternational communication, where information and financial capital aretransmitted almost instantaneously around the globe, and where goods and servicesproduced in one part of the world are ubiquitously available (Porter, 2008). Porter(2008) goes on to say:

Globalization describes the political, economic, and cultural atmosphere of today. While somepeople think of globalization as primarily a synonym for global business, it is much more

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than that. The same forces that allow businesses to operate as if national borders did not existalso allow social activists, labor organizers, journalists, academics, and many others to workon a global stage.

Whatever definition one might use, the phenomena described above are universallyrecognized as having a profound impact upon how all business is conducted, whetheron a seemingly small local basis or as a large multinational corporation.

2.1 Implications for academiaAcademia is not immune to the phenomena underlying globalization as has been wellrecognized by universities, their business schools and faculties, and by the associationsrepresenting both education institutions and their corporate clients. Internationalbusiness requires effective management across international boundaries, within andbetween groups having different cultural norms and worldviews. According to Hay(2008) the purpose of business schools is to create value – academic value through theirresearch, personal value for students, executives and alumni from the knowledgeand skills they develop while studying, and social value through activities rangingfrom research and teaching to proactive commitment in explicit social value creatingactivities. Such a spectrum of value creation cannot occur without internationalconnectedness and insight.

Although a considerable amount has been written about the globalization imperativefacing business schools with innumerable illustrations about what might be consideredbest practice, the literature still suffers a dearth of information when it comes to thearticulation of strategies and implementation challenges facing institutions seeking tomove themselves along a globalizing trajectory (Doh, 2010; AACSB, 2008).

3. Globalization of management educationBusiness schools are responding to the global education imperative through shifts intheir research agendas and through explicit transformation of their academic andprofessional programs. In spite of popular concerns often expressed about the scopeand nature of research conducted within business schools, the importance ofscholarship as an essential process that places collegiate business schools in a uniqueand important position at the intersection of management theory, education, andpractice (AACSB International, 2008, p. 8) means that schools are required to ensurethat their faculty engage in research that has relevance for international as much asdomestic business. Although the top scholarly journals are predominantly of USorigin, journals and conferences outside the North America are gaining moreparticipants and international scholars also constitute a greater proportion of thepublished authors in top journals[3]. Recently, the European Union’s seventhframework program for research and technological development includes theopportunity for collaborative international business research[4] by making availablesome seven billion euros per annum over the 2007-2013 funding period.

Schools have tended to internationalize their educational programs by followingthree, sometimes sequential, trajectories. First, they increase their currently servedclient (student) segment’s understanding of global business practice by changes in thecurriculum. Second, they reach out to new international clients (students) to addclassroom diversity. Finally, they integrate academic and behavioral aspects of aninternationally oriented curriculum, and the diverse experiences of an internationallyrecruited student body to produce graduates capable of working effectively anywhere

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in the world. Successfully implementing the third and final part of this track requiresthat business schools go beyond the academic aspects alone, and address issues ofinternationalization with respect to pedagogical approaches, classroom interactions,diverse worldviews, language capabilities, and career guidance. A short immersiontrip to China with courses taught by international faculty using the traditionalinternationally dominant textbooks and readings combined with sightseeing trips tothe Great Wall must be recognized as having limited real value even when one or twocompany visits are added to the mix!

3.1 An increasingly competitive landscapeThe management education market, particularly as exemplified by the MBA degree,has operated under mature market conditions within North America and the UK forwell over a quarter of a century and within much of western Europe for at leasttwo decades. This maturity is evidenced by the well established, internationallyrecognized, and ranked programs offered in these markets that attract studentsglobally, and by the fact that AACSB International and the European Foundationfor Management Development are today recognized as the dominant internationalaccrediting bodies for business schools worldwide. Consequently, managementeducation institutions in these markets have found themselves having to compete farharder to sustain, and grow, their share of the domestic market. Offering programsrelevant for a globalizing world has been part of the competitive strategy employed bya number of leading players such as London Business School, Wharton School ofBusiness, INSEAD, and Kellogg Graduate School of Management as has their decisionto increasingly turn to emerging economies.

As a service industry, management education is not immune to the supply chainmobility patterns evident in all other segments. From the supply side, high-speedcommunication and travel, and the increasing mobility of faculty have resulted insignificant growth in the number of competitors in the international market. AACSBInternational estimated that there were approximately 12,600 management degreegranting institutions operating around the world in 2009 and that this number wouldgrow to over 20,000 by 2020[5]. Despite the excess demand evident in internationalmanagement education and the growth of technology enhanced distance offerings,mobility differences between the supply and demand side continue to drive pricingpower into the hands of clients (students) who are increasingly less location bound.

From a competitive perspective there are many high quality business schools inpreviously poorly served markets that are starting to compete well against thehistorically dominant international players. Evidence of this fact is that The FinancialTimes MBA 2007-2008 (2009) rankings survey now lists Cape Town UniversityBusiness School, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Hong KongUniversity of Science and Technology, Indian School of Business, and NanyangBusiness School in Singapore among the top 100 international schools.Emerging economy schools are also becoming accredited by all three internationalaccrediting agencies. Of the abovementioned schools, Cape Town University BusinessSchool in South Africa has European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS)accreditation, as do CEIBS and Tsinghua University School of Economics andManagement in China. In 2006 the Association of MBAs accredited its first MBAprogram in India at the Management Development Institute in Gurgaon. Clearly,excellent business schools are no longer located only in North America and Europe buton all five continents. It is also important to note that the two primary international

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accrediting agencies, EQUIS (EQUIS Accredited Schools, 2010) and AACSBInternational[6], both require that institutions demonstrate scholarly as well ascurricula and program quality.

In 2008, GMAC reported that for the first time applicants from China and India whowanted to study at business schools put their own country to study in as firstpreference. This bears testimony to how fast these local players are building theirreputations as viable alternatives to the dominant international schools of NorthAmerica and western Europe and developing the scale necessary to retain their besttalent in their own market. Additionally, as these schools gain profile they are alsostarting to look internationally to expand their own pool and offer globally relevantprograms to diverse student bodies (GMAC Registrants Survey, 2009).

3.2 Strategies for globalizationIn 2005 the McKinsey Global Institute projected that given the global aspirations ofmany Chinese companies over the next ten to 15 years they will need 75,000 leaderswho can work effectively in global environments; today they have only 3,000-5,000(Farrell and Grant, 2005, p. 74). According to the report, the issue is not so much thenumber of graduates, but their lack of knowledge and skills appropriate for the globalenvironment of Chinese business. Although the above presents a rather stark picturefor China it is replicated across many if not all developing economies (Pfeffermann,2011).

Lorange (2003) suggests five capabilities that he believes business schools need tohave in order to go global. They must have staff and organizational capabilities,partnership capability, learning capability, and strategic capability. In similar vein,Iniguez de Onzono and Carmona (2007) argue that there are certain forces thatdrive business school models, including sources of income, market concentration, theprofile of customers, and distribution channels. They contend that responding to thesechanging forces, requires that schools closely examine their portfolio of financialresources, the segments and activities they currently serve, and the geographicalmarkets and strategic alliances where they feel opportunities exist. Beyond this criticalappraisal, business schools also need to closely examine the why of current businesspractice in their own region if they are to avoid the mistaken belief that domesticpractices somehow represent universal truths for management. The foreign campusesthat have been established over the last decade by several of the top-ranked businessschools perhaps best illustrate this mistake with initial successes that appear to havebeen more due to their appeal to national expatriates in foreign domiciles than byvirtue of the universality of their curriculum and educational offerings.

Pitt et al. (1997) examined two diametrically opposed methods or approaches tointernational business education – the first based upon the strategic framework ofPorter and the second on the framework of Ohmae – and derive the managementeducation internationalization strategy consequences of this fundamental choice. Theycontend that Porter’s strategy for internationalization derives from the concept of“think local, act global” while Ohmae’s derives from the concept of “think global andact local.” Each framework leads to a fundamentally different approach to how a schoolwill internationalize its students, faculty, curriculum, and method. According to Pittet al. (1997), Porter’s strategic approach advises that a school select the best studentsfrom home and augment them with a few from abroad, recruit the best faculty locallyand provide international developmental experiences, teach principles of managementdeveloped at home and enhance them through appending examples of international

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best practice, and develop the education method best suited to the home market andsupplement it with international experiences. On the other hand, Omhae’s strategicapproach would advise that a school create a microcosm of the world by recruiting thebest students and faculty possible from around the world, developing a curriculumthat is a-national and that employs the best methods for learning no matter where theyare sourced, and then add an implementation overlay that provides a local contextperspective.

Whichever of the above approaches is adopted, globalizing will need strong andvisionary leadership. Criticisms of what is taught in business schools by scholars thatinclude such notables as Mintzberg and Gosling (2002), and Ghoshal (2005) aresignificantly amplified in the international arena and suggest that significanttransformation is needed for schools to succeed globally. Ghemawat (2008) contendsthat the lack of progress in the globalization of business schools is because the issuereceives insufficient attention and interest from deans. Lorange (2003) argues thatbusiness schools, like many successful companies, find international growth elusivebecause they face today’s challenges with yesterday’s national capabilities. He argues foran Omhae approach where programs must be taught in English, they must have aninternational mix of students and truly international professional staff, their marketingshould be done on a global scale, and they must offer a global meeting place even if this istechnological rather than physical. The challenge of leadership is also reflected incomments made at a recent colloquium on the Globalization of Business SchoolEducation[7] where business school deans acknowledged courses and methods as beingthe least successful in delivering key material on international business and management.

4. Internationalizing typologiesBusiness schools from developed and developing economies that have made consciousefforts to internationalize have done so using a range of partnership arrangementsacross the spectrum of scholarship and programming. From a partnership perspective,relationships may be institutionally endorsed or center around individuals. Froma programming perspective, internationalization efforts span undergraduate businessdegrees, professional and academic graduate degrees through to customized and openexecutive programs. Figure 1 plots the range of possibilities as a topological map.

4.1 PartnershipsWell over a decade ago Peter Drucker[8] expressed the opinion that the greatest changein corporate culture, and the way business is conducted, maybe the acceleratinggrowth of relationships based not on ownership, but on partnership – a relationshipdescribed by Wheelen and Hunger (2002, p. 125) as an agreement between firms to dobusiness together in ways that go beyond normal company-to-company dealings, butfall sort of a merger. Globalization within the business education sector has by nomeans been immune to this, with partnerships possibly playing an even moredominant role in the internationalization of management education than is the case forcorporations. Only an extremely small fraction of the business schools currentlyinvolved in international activities have done so through acquisition or going it alone.

Baden-Fuller and Ang (2001) argue that while winners typically form partnershipswith other winners, those outside the inner circle can improve their reputation andposition by forming partnerships with those who have a stronger reputation. Suchpartnerships clearly exist between business schools across the developed andemerging economy divide. They provide a somewhat obvious and valuable flow of

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benefits to the lesser known, usually emerging economy, school, through helping itdevelop an international reputation and quality by association boost in its homemarket as well as through possible scholarly knowledge transfer. However, they alsoneed to provide benefits for the stronger partner in the form of an expanded footprintand by providing access to external markets they would otherwise find more costly toaccess. These include markets for executive education, recruitment, and placement.

Whatever the benefits, there needs to be clear reciprocity across the domain ofknowledge and market access, and product, process or idea creation for thepartnership to sustain. As Baden-Fuller and Ang (2001) have observed, partnershipsare hard to construct and hard to maintain, with challenges being amplified when thecontracting parties are in different countries. Consequently, strategic innovation andinternationalization of a business school’s activities through partnership requires anunderstanding of context for both parties, a somewhat unique perspective onflexibility, passion and commitment, and an ethical approach to ensuring mutualbenefit is achieved rather than asymmetric benefit extraction. Schools seeking anexpanded international or global orientation may have to tailor their offerings in amanner that focusses that much more on management as a context rich process andmuch less on management as merely an accumulation of content for shared benefit tobe realized with international partners.

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Figure 1.Topological map ofapproaches forinternationalizing thebusiness school

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Relative to China and India, Africa and the Middle East have remained substantiallyignored by the developed world management education sector. In spite of individualschools being encouraged to develop satellite operations in the Middle East and of thelong engagement between some developed economy schools and a few isolatedemerging economy schools in Africa, two aspects graphically demonstrate this. First,very few of the regions’ business schools are internationally accredited. Second, theEuropean Foundation for Management Development will host its first Middle East,north Africa (MENA) region conference in Dubai in late November 2010 followinga successful first Africa Conference hosted in Lisbon during September 2010. Althoughthe social and economic circumstances pertaining to the bulk of Africa may explain thelateness of such industry recognition and may even justify it at a micro (singleorganization) level, ignoring the Middle East for so long – possibly because of politicalfactors – delays development and understanding of a region of the world that is alsoincreasingly influential and that may even dictate how the global economy market willoperate over the next three decades. The economic and business might of the Islamicworld is growing at an accelerated pace.

4.2 Illustrations and case studiesThe topological map presented in Figure 1 is proposed as a means of positioningelements of a business school’s internationalization strategy. By plotting variousexisting or aspiring components of the strategy on the map, school leadership canassess whether the strategy optimally uses existing resources and is coherent, or if itexcessively stretches certain resources in a non-sustainable fashion. In all, 12 casestudies, (A) through (L), are presented in the list that follows and located on thetopological map to highlight the range of approaches currently employed, and todemonstrate their spread across the entire map. Own institution curriculuminnovation, international faculty and international student recruiting strategies, andsupport (financial and through institutional relationships) for international explorationand networking by existing faculty are not presented as case studies. These methodsare pervasive and well understood, even if not always well executed – a point that ismade by Doh (2010) when he argues for a “more global agenda for business schoolmanagement and management education more broadly” (2010, p. 166).

Partnership forms and illustrative case studies:

(1) Visiting faculty: most universities and business schools provide opportunitiesfor visiting faculty to research and teaching during sabbatical or researchleave periods. Some schools contract international faculty as adjuncts as anessential means of enriching the international exposure of students andexecutives being taught at the home campus. Schools in emerging economiesthat have adopted this approach include the Indian School of Business inHyderabad, Pretoria University’s Gordon Institute of Business Science inSouth Africa, and the IEDC Bled School of Management in Slovenia.Additionally, a number of high reputation globally branded schools in thedeveloped world such as IMD Lausanne in Switzerland and the RotterdamSchool of Management in the Netherlands have used this as a feature of theirMBA and executive education portfolios.

(2) Student exchange programs: exchange programs operate on a reciprocalbasis and seek to achieve numerical parity over a limited number of yearsas no tuition revenue is transferred between the signatories. Exchange

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programs allow students to study in an institution other than their own fora period of one or more semesters. Students follow regular university courseswith students at the host institution and may also be permitted to undertakeindividual applied research under the instruction of the exchange partner’sfaculty. Course credits are mutually recognized by the partner institutions.

(3) Dual degrees: the HEC Paris – Chinese University of Hong Kong (CHUK) dualdegree program requires that students undertake approximately half theireducation at each institution in order to receive a full-time MBA degree fromeach. HEC Paris offers this option with six other international businessschools around the world. A similar offering is the joint EMBA program of theVienna University of Economics and Business in Austria, and the Universityof Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.

(4) Consortium degrees: these are single degrees offered by partners workingtogether as a consortium. Illustrations include the TRIUM Global ExecutiveMBA offered by HEC Paris, London School of Economics and New YorkUniversity’s Stern School of Business; and, the S3 Asia MBA offered byFudan University in Shanghai, the Korea University Business School in Seouland the National University of Singapore Business School. These programsusually require that students spend time in each location before receivinga degree from their home university and a consortium certificate. Analternative form of consortium arrangement is the Global Alliance inManagement Education[9] Masters in International Management (CEMSMIM) degree. This cooperation includes some sixty multinationalcorporations and twenty-five universities and business schools around theglobe. The degree requires that students complete the first semester at thehome institution, second semester abroad at another CEMS member school,complete an international internship with a partner corporation, and developa master three languages. Graduates receive their home university masterdegree and the CEMS Ml M consortium degree.

(5) Quality endorsement: Erasmus University’s Rotterdam School ofManagement in the Netherlands (RSM) offers a quality certificationfor several of the MBA programs offered by the Gdansk Foundation forManagement Development in Poland (GFMD). The RSM provides areputationenhancement opportunity for GFMD in its local Polish marketand, through the rigors of a certification system that includes requiring thatthe program be taught in English, ensures that the program is moreinternational than might otherwise be the case. This quality assurance issomewhat different to what is offered by the international accreditingagencies – it is program specific and open to institutions that may not havethe resource base necessary for full accreditation at either the program orinstitution level. Similarly, Fudan University in Shanghai and ChulalongkornUniversity’s Sasin Graduate School of Business in Bangkok have theirInternational MBA degrees endorsed by MIT Sloan and the Kellogg School ofManagement, respectively.

(6) Franchise programs: some education institutions allow their programs to berun under a form of licensing or franchising arrangement. This occurs toease the entry of the licensor/franchisor into a market that may otherwise be

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restricted or as a means of managing costs and spreading investment riskwithout threatening the parent brand. Examples include Rotterdam Schoolof Management’s Executive Masters in Islamic Financial Managementoffered by Ecole Superieure des Affaires in Beirut and Master in FinancialManagement offered by the University of Netherlands Antilles in Curacao,and several of Henley Business School’s thirty international offices throughwhich it offers its MBA degree.

(7) Campus abroad: satellite campuses abroad may be established as a means ofleveraging what is perceived to already be a global brand. INSEAD and theUniversity of Chicago’s Booth School of Business were among the first to dothis with the establishment of their campuses in Singapore and Barcelona,respectively. Subsequently, and just over a decade ago, the University ofWestern Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business became the first NorthAmerican business school to establish a campus in Asia – the Cheng Yu TungManagement Institute. Of the highly branded business schools, ManchesterBusiness School recently established a campus abroad in Miami throughwhich it started to offer a part-time Global MBA in September 2010[10].

(8) Technology enabled outreach: technology can be employed as a means ofexpanding an institution’s footprint and as a way of increasing theinternational diversity of the student body. On-line programs are oftensupplemented with residential components, structured virtual teaming, orsynchronous on-line activities to ensure the benefits of student diversity arerealized. Illustrations of this approach include; Liverpool’s distance learningprogram that allocates a learning mentor to each student and that requiresone or two in-class modules be taken during the degree; Bentley University’sMasters in Information Design and Corporate Communication that uses ahybrid synchronous method where national and international satellitestudents join resident students in the classroom through virtual means, and;DOBA Faculty of Applied Business and Social Sciences in Maribor – thelargest distance education and e-learning provider in Slovenia and thatattracts some students from surrounding countries particularly during itssummer program.

(9) Consortium based research programs: these programs usually developbetween institutions that have a common long-term research interest thatjustifies the collaboration efforts through a comparative analysis approach.The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) established about a decade agoby London Business School and Babson College in the USA illustrates theconcept. This not-for-profit academic research consortium that claims to bethe world’s largest research project focussing on entrepreneurs and how theyaffect national economic growth in different countries currently includeseducation institution and research center partners in over fifty countries[11].

(10) State and international agency funded research: sponsored collaborations ofthis type usually arise when nascent relationships exist that are stimulated byconditions attached to significant funding opportunities. Illustrative of this isthe EU-China Business Management Training (BMT) Project that is receivingten million Euros over five years from the European Union Commission. Inaddition to providing practice-oriented business management training for

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Chinese professionals, the project also requires extensive researchcollaboration between the two major partners – Frankfurt School ofFinance and Management and the China Europe International BusinessSchool (CEIBS) in Shanghai. Funded integrated financial services researchundertaken during the first two years of the project has already producedBMT branded published papers and a working paper series, student researchoutputs, conference papers and proceedings, and articles oriented to morepopular media outlets[12].

(11) Immersion trips: international trips of limited duration are being increasinglyembedded in degree and executive education programs. These are specificallydesigned to give home students and executives the opportunity to exploreaspects of business, politics and society in a foreign country in a very hands-on way. Although such programs essentially fall under the full authorityof the home school, business schools often turn to education institutions atthe selected destination for input into both the academic and corporateconnection elements of the program. Stellenbosch University Business Schoolin South Africa and Tilburg University in the Netherlands representillustrations of this tried and tested approach. Both institutions use BentleyUniversity’s executive education division and its Massachusetts connectionsto run two-week immersion courses for their executive degree students.Chulalongkorn University’s Sasin Graduate School of Business in Bangkokfollows a similar approach with the Kellogg School of Management in theUSA with the single distinction being that its relationship with Kellogg ismuch deeper being based upon the founding and continuing support Kelloggand its faculty provide to Sasin.

(12) Custom education program based partnering: large companies, particularlythose with an international or global footprint, are increasingly looking foreducation providers to collaborate when tendering for custom or tailoredbusiness[13]. Motivation for this is threefold. First, the company wants tobe sure that the programming design and the faculty used are “right forthe program” and not just supplier forced. Second, the company wants toensure that the program delivers relevant and grounded material that isappropriate for participants drawn from multiple locations – in particular,from participating education providers that are leaders in these locations.Third, cost of delivery at multiple locations may be significantly reduced byusing a consortium of “local” providers rather than relying on a singleglobally branded business school.

Employing international visitors as lecturers (A), including international immersiontrips within degree and executive programs (K), and developing exchangepartnerships (B) can be considered relatively easy first phase opportunities forbusiness schools. Each of the three methods can be adopted at a relatively lowmarginal cost and they can achieve the two objectives of spreading internationalawareness for a school and of building linkages that provide an entry point forsubsequent engagements. Schools with relatively strong local or regional brand, andthose that have built some international awareness using the above approaches maylook to establishing more form institutionally branded program partnerships. Withinthe degree program arena these include dual (C) and consortium (D) degrees, and

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within executive education custom program partnering (L). These partnerships aremore expensive to establish and maintain. Cultural challenges and programcoordination costs also need to be considered. How much curriculum flexibility doeseach school allow? What are the accreditation challenges for each partner, and howcan these be addressed[14]? Business schools with relatively strong brands that arelocated in desirable education markets[15] can use technology enabled methods tointernationalize the classroom (H), develop franchise programs (F), and even establishcampuses abroad (G). Clearly, the costs attendant to these can be significant andfailure is expensive in a cash and reputation sense. From a research perspective,consortium (I) and agency funded (J) approaches to collaboration are gainingmomentum with funding agencies often encouraging, or even requiring, applicationsto be partner based. Business schools that have developed relationships throughprogramming activities should plan to exploit these over time as a means ofstimulating funded international collaboration.

5. Who is exchanging with whom?Exchange agreements remain the dominant and early entry points for business schoolsthat wish to internationalize. Furthermore, Baden-Fuller and Ang’s (2001) contentionthat winners co-associate and that outsiders can achieve reputation enhancement bypartnering with winners, presents interesting opportunities for emerging marketschools that get ahead of their local competition in building exchange linkagesinternationally. As early entrants within the growing student exchange environmentthese schools may be able to link with top-branded established schools seekinginternational experience opportunities for their own students. The data presentedbelow are examined to confirm or refute this contention.

5.1 Data and methodologyThe data used for the exchange agreement research were extracted from the web sitesof the top 100 business schools identified in the 2009 The Financial Times Full-TimeMBA rankings[16]. Business school web sites were used under the assumption thatidentifying with exchange partners through a school’s primary marketing channel hasbranding consequences for the school itself and for its MBA, and potentially for eachschool identified as an exchange partner. A total of 339 schools were identified throughthe data gathering process – the 100 top-ranked schools and 239 additional schools.Each identified school was then assigned to a country and one of the ten GMACs

regions (Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), 2010). The networks ofcross-national exchanges that top-ranked business schools have with one another andwith unranked schools are displayed in Figures 2 and 3.

Figure 2 is interpreted as follows: each region is represented by a colored circlewith an associated number that gives the number of ranked schools from thatregion[17]. As illustration, there are 27 top schools in western Europe and four in eastand southeast Asia. The sequence of numbers associated with each region givethe total number of international exchanges that the ranked schools from that regionhave with ranked schools in each of the regions around the world. In each instance,these data begin with the Canada and USA and move clockwise around the graphic.The data for east and southeast Asia of (70:4:1:0:1:0:3:26:4) indicate schools fromthis region had 70 exchanges with top-ranked schools in Canada and USA; fourwithin the region[18]; one with Mexico, Caribbean and Latin America; and, 26 withwestern Europe.

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Figure 3 presents ranked school exchange agreements with unranked schools usingthe same methodology. However, the interpretation of the numbers presented isslightly different. First, the colored circles and associated numbers give the number ofunranked schools from that region that are mentioned by one or more ranked schools

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Africa1:2:0:0:0:0:0:7:0

Australia and Pacific islands0:5:1:1:0:0:2:9:0

Canada and USA1:145:106:14:11:17:28:216:9

Central and south Asia2:5:0:0:0:0:1:1:0

East and southeast Asia7:25:3:2:1:3:4:27:2

Eastern Europe0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0

Mexico, Caribbeanand Latin America3:5:10:1:0:2:3:16:2

Western Europe31:47:29:8:4:7:9:52:10

Middle East0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0

Figure 3.International exchangesbetween The FinancialTimes top 100 and othernon-ranked regionalbusiness schools

3 62

4

1

1

00

27

2

Central and south Asia11:3:0:0:1:0:0:8:1

East and southeast Asia70:4:1:0:1:0:3:26:4

Eastern Europe0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0

Mexico, Caribbeanand Latin America16:1:2:0:0:0:0:8:0

Western Europe161:26:11:0:4:0:8:53:16

Canada and USA9:70:16:0:10:0:11:161:33

Middle East0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0

Africa10:1:0:0:0:0:1:4:1

Australia and Pacific islands33:4:0:0:1:0:1:16:0

Figure 2.International exchangesamong the top 100business schools asranked by The FinancialTimes 2009 for full-timeMBA programs

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as an exchange partner. Second, the sequence of numbers associated with each regiongive the total number of international exchanges that the ranked schools from thatregion have with unranked schools in each of the regions around the world. The datafor Australia and Pacific islands of (0:5:1:1:0:0:2:9:0) indicate that the three rankedschools (shown in Figure 2) from this region have five exchanges with unrankedschools in east and southeast Asia; one with unranked schools in Mexico, Caribbeanand Latin America; and nine with unranked schools in western Europe.

Table I presents the breakdown of partnerships by developed and emergingeconomy schools where developed economy business schools are defined as thoselocated with Canada and USA and western Europe. Emerging economy businessschools are defined as the remaining seven regions.

From the table it is clear that top-ranked developed economy schools partner with adisproportionately higher number of unranked schools because of their desire tointernationalize their education offerings through partnerships where there arerelatively few internationally branded and ranked schools is supported. In a similarvein, the relatively recent entry into the rankings of emerging economy schools enablesthem to secure a higher proportion of developed economy ranked partner schools thanmight otherwise be the case. This suggests that short-term opportunities exist forschools in emerging economies.

6. ConclusionThe imperative for business schools to educate students and undertake researchrelevant to a globalized world is undisputed. However, the challenge for many schoolsremains how to do this with limited resources, both human capital and financial.

A considerable amount has been written about the globalization imperative facingbusiness schools with illustrations being presented of what can be considered bestpractice (Friga et al., 2003; Hawawini, 2005; Atkinson and Edgington, 2007). In spite ofthis, there remains a lack of information when it comes to the articulation of strategiesand implementation challenges facing less endowed business schools that wantto globalize. This paper explored various models that have been proposed and looks tocontrast and integrate them for the benefit of these less endowed, and often emergingeconomy, institutions.

Several entry points exist for those seeking to begin an internationalizationtrajectory and some are not as expensive and resource intensive as one might imagine.As illustration, a business school can strongly encourage staff and faculty to attend

Developed economy Emerging economy

No. of ranked schools 89 11No. of MBA exchage partnerships with

Ranked business schoolsDeveloped economy 384 28.8% 202 52.5%Emerging economy 205 15.4% 30 7.8%

589 44.21% 232 60.3%Unranked business Schools

Developed economy 300 22.51% 102 26.5%Emerging economy 444 33.3% 51 13.2%

744 55.81% 153 39.7%Total number of partnerships 1,333 100.0% 385 100.0%

Table I.Exchanges that rankedbusiness schools in the

developed and emergingeconomies have with one

another and withunranked business

schools

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international conferences, take short trips abroad, and have international sabbaticals.Deans and directors that do not encourage this type of engagement are missing arelatively low cost but highly effective way of starting to build relationships withinternational schools, and of obtaining international insight that can be brought home.A conscious effort for own faculty to build relationships with faculty in anothercountry as a seed to further personal research and, subsequently, possible institutionalengagement is very valuable. Furthermore, although taking one’s own studentson study trips is worthwhile, consideration must be given to asking destinationuniversities and business schools to assist with, or even manage, the study programand business and societal experiences. This approach helps build and cementinstitutional relationships, gives students a flavor of what it is like being at a foreignschool in a foreign country taught by foreign faculty, and leads to broader learningexperiences that do not have to overly rely on “domestic multinational companiesabroad” as site visit destinations[19].

Once a business school has established an entry network in internationaldestinations of interest, opportunities exist for even greater engagement, usuallythrough student exchange and jointly funded research among individual facultymembers who have come to know one another. This, second phase ofinternationalization, offers more than the obvious improvements in globalizededucation and research – it opens the door for schools to begin planning forinternational accreditation, accreditation that may be necessary for the third phase ofinternationalization. This occurs when the business school’s reputation and position inits local market make it a sought after partner for deeper and more sustained alliances– alliances that include dual degrees and jointly funded institutional researchinitiatives. Although the analysis of international exchange programs finds thatschools in emerging economies can reach a level of internationalization throughexchanges and individual faculty relationships, international accreditation is a crucialnext step. These agencies have standards for the achievement and maintenance ofaccreditation that induce accredited schools to only want to partner with otheraccredited schools over time. Accreditation requires that schools seeking accreditationdemonstrate that they have quality control over non-accredited partners.

This paper has discussed the globalization of business schools and the differentstrategies, issues, and perspectives on how and why they are going global. Differentaspects of the globalization of management education are discussed includingglobalizing the curriculum, globalizing research, and globalized competition. Thetypology of approaches used by business schools that have achieved a measure ofinternationalization using either Porter’s “think local, act global” or Ohmae’s “thinkglobal and act local” approaches (Pitt et al., 1997) presented should be utilized to plota path forward. How this can be done is demonstrated through 12 partnershipillustrations from developed and developing economies across the spectrum ofscholarship and programming. The Financial Times top 100 school exchangepartnerships confirms that unranked emerging economy schools can “punchabove their weight” and sign partnerships with a disproportionate number ofhigher ranked schools in the developed economies because of those schools desiresto internationalize their own offerings. An emerging economy location can be anattractive “hook” that these universities and business schools should exploit before theopportunity passes.

Numerous options and possibilities exist for emerging economy business schoolsto internationalize that can be viewed from a programming perspective through to

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a fuller partnership perspective. In many cases, not taking advantage of suchopportunities might be more the result of lack of foresight and planning than ofresources.

Notes

1. Nigel Biggar is Professor of Theology and Ethics at the School of Religions and Theology,Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin. His address was delivered to Rhodes Scholarsat a Trinity Forum Conference at Rhodes House, Oxford, on November 7, 2009.

2. For the purposes of this paper, the term “developed economy schools” refers to businessschools located in the mature management education markets – essentially, North Americaand western Europe – while the term “emerging economy schools” is used for businessschools and management education institutions located outside of these markets.

3. The Financial Times lists London Business School, INSEAD and Hong Kong University ofScience and Technology Business School as being among the top research schools in its2010 full-time ranking in spite of the fact that its journal list is overwhelmingly dominatedby US-edited journals.

4. http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html, October 16, 2010.

5. AACSB International CEO and President, John Fernandes, speaking at the AACSBInternational 2010 Annual Accreditation Conference in Houston, Texas, USA, September26-28, 2010.

6. AACSB Accredited Schools: www.allbusinessschools.com/featured/aacsb

7. IESE Business School, University of Navarra, Barcelona, Spain, October 4-6, 2007.

8. Peter (1996).

9. Formerly called the Community of European Management Schools and International Companies.

10. www.mbs.ac.uk/miami/global_programmes.html, October 1, 2010.

11. www.gemconsortium.org/, October 1, 2010.

12. www.ceibs.edu/bmt/research/index.shtml, October 12, 2010.

13. Angel Cabrera, Association of MB As Annual MBA Program Directors Conference, Madrid,May 2004.

14. Schools that are internationally accredited are often required to demonstrate and guaranteethe quality of the non-accredited partner as part of maintaining their own accreditation. Thisinduces schools to only seek accredited schools as potential partners in the first place.

15. As illustration, the USA and UK are still seen as desirable destinations for internationalstudents that has a halo effect for many institutional located there.

16. These are referred to as “ranked schools” in the analysis.

17. The USA and Canada are combined for this study producing the following nine regions: Africa;Australia and Pacific islands; Canada and USA; central and south Asia; east and southeast Asia;eastern Europe; Mexico, Caribbean and Latin America; Middle East; and (9) western Europe.

18. Within region exchanges are also international in that only exchanges across nationalboundaries are counted.

19. When first engaging in international study trips, business schools are inclined to use theirhome network to gain access to “offices abroad.” While valuable, these may be lessinteresting and relevant than when a business school at the destination uses its local contactsto get “indigenous” companies as site locations.

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Further reading

AACB International (2011), “Globalization of management education: changing internationalstructures, adaptive strategies, and the impact on institutions”, final report of the TaskForce on Globalization of Management Education, Tampa, FL.

Lorange, P. (2005), “Strategy means choice: also for today’s business school!”, Journal ofManagement Development, Vol. 24 No. 9, pp. 783-90.

About the author

Dianne Lynne Bevelander is Associate Dean, MBA Programs, at the Rotterdam Schoolof Management (Erasmus University). She holds an MBA from the University of Cape Town,South Africa, and a PhD from Lulea University of Technology, Sweden. Dianne LynneBevelander can be contacted at: dbevelander@rsm.nl

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