By
Karen Paul
Associate Dean,College of Business Administration,Florida International University

MANAGEMENT EDUCATION FOR GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP

One mechanism for developing global corporate citizenship is through the programs offered at business schools - i.e by recruiting international students to those programs and by making internationally focused programs available to students of one's own country. However, there are a number of elements of the conventional MBA program that can be obstacles to this internationalization.

For example, while visiting some of our partner universities in Mexico recently I became aware of certain practical problems international students experience when they come to our school to study. We are located on a suburban campus at the end of a bus line. I met students who were coming to our university as exchange students who were making an extra trip ahead of time to purchase a car. Otherwise, according to the students who had preceded them, they would be isolated.

Another way to internationalize the business school is through faculty exchanges. However, often current class and teaching scheduling requires faculty to make a time commitment of one whole term, either a quarter or a semester, in an exchange. It is too long to be away from home base, but not long enough to justify a real relocation. And it definitely does not suit the two-career family!

Another issue is how to integrate the international student into the actual business world, and how to make sure your student studying in another country actually experiences the world of business there.

Finally, students come to the business school with a wide variety of backgrounds. We always have the mix of students who have studied business as undergraduates, and those whose backgrounds are in other fields. This variety is compounded in the international program, where some are bilingual, while others are not. Some have lived in many different countries, while others have hardly traveled. Some have worked abroad, some others have not.

Perhaps like us - Schools can aim to meet these potential problems by locating their International MBA program in a downtown office building, accessible by public transit. This gives students a wide choice of housing options and makes it possible for them to travel to most areas of our metropolitan region without buying a car. Classes can be scheduled in three-week and six-week modules, so that students and faculty can come and go without making a long-term commitment. It should be possible to arrange for a wide variety of internships, including a number that would be available to international students who are subject to work restrictions by terms of their student visa. A Professional Development Seminar can be scheduled into the program that will allow a number of site visits and the opportunity to bring in a number of guest speakers.

In developing the curriculum for an International program, the regular MBA curriculum can be used as the basis, but with courses adapted for the international focus through international cases and exercises. Course content will normally have to be modified, for example, to include more coverage of international marketing, finance etc. Obviously, intercultural communication and diverse business practices must be covered.

In addition, certain course material is of more relevance in other countries than those of us who live in places like the USA might think. For example, take the issue of corruption. On one level we know that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act affects the way US companies operate. But the sense of corruption as a national problem, as a factor inhibiting investment and economic development, is far more salient to those from many other countries. In areas such as this the normal curriculum may need to be modified.

The impediments to internalize are many, and, in the beginning, the rewards to a School for doing so can be slight. Some faculty may experience this new direction as devaluing their own history and their own investment in functional expertise. Keeping up with international political, social, and economic conditions is endless work. Just as shifting international winds may lead to unexpected opportunities, they may also lead to unexpected obsolescence. These are some of the practical issues faced by Schools in developing management education for global citizenship. These are some of the aspects that those prospective MBA students who intend to study abroad will wish to consider before making their choice of program.