Student Characteristics and Pedagogies in Developing Global Mindsets: Introduction to this Issue

In optimizing the development global mindsets among International Business (IB) students, educators must account for the backgrounds and prior training of such students. These student characteristics may include current global awareness, knowledge of cultures and institutions in various countries, their differing learning styles, ages, personality types, and business or management experience. These contentions have been documented in past literature as being important in impacting the effectiveness of IB teaching.

According to Bouquet (2005) and Hitt, Javidan, Steers (2007) a Global Mindset includes the ability to think and act with a global scale and perspective. It makes it easy and inexpensive to minimize the negative effects and maximize any positive effects of cultural differences. For example, such a global mindset may be illustrated through the ability to attract and inspire talented people from different parts of the world to work together to achieve common goals (Gupta and Govindarajan, 2002). It is important to have a global mindset in today’s competitive international environment. For example, Kedia and Mukherji (1999) noticed that with increasing global competitiveness, traditional ways of doing business no longer work and managers now need global knowledge and skills that underlie a global mindset. Indeed, others note that regardless of their size, industry, location, or degree of internationalization, all companies must be prepared to deal with competitors from many parts of the world with such competence including a range of knowledge domains including technology, demographics, sustainability, and their interaction with each other and with globalization (Aggarwal, 2011). Thus, more and more corporations are looking for managers with a global mindset and understanding of various business practices in different regions of the world. Indeed, Nummela, Saarenketo, and Puumalainen (2004) document a positive relationship between a global mindset and the international financial performance of the firm.

However, a global mindset does not form on its own for most people and the process of acquiring such mindsets likely varies with the specifics of each person’s background. So, teaching for global mindsets presents significant educational challenges (also opportunities) in preparing students facing the globalization challenge that is now ubiquitous. It is a particularly important challenge for IB education. Various pedagogical methods and techniques have been used in IB education to facilitate the student acquisition of a global perspective and mindset. These IB programs more likely include required classroom lectures and discussion sessions, training in one or more foreign languages, short- or long-term study abroad, and overseas visits and internships. It is well documented that while all of these pedagogical techniques contribute to the end goal of a global mindset, teaching techniques and learning devices that are experiential are a particularly effective and important part of equipping IB students with global mindsets. As indicated by Aggarwal and Goodell (2012), today’s IB education must extend beyond simply teaching theory and concepts in a classroom. Indeed, experiential pedagogies can improve not only IB education, but all areas of business education.

This and other past issues of JTIB have published many papers on experiential approaches in IB education and how their deployment may differ based on student learning styles and other characteristics. For example, JTIB has a rich collection of papers on study abroad programs. For instance, through comparison of two short-term study abroad programs in two different Universities, Ramakrishna, Sarkar and Vijayaraman (2016) document various factors that influence the design and success of short-term study abroad programs. Also, Deloach, Saliba, Smith & Tiemann (2003) propose a new design of short-term study abroad program that includes group discussions in the course curriculum. They find that this approach is an efficient method to help students reflect on their learning experience and increase students’ global awareness. Further, Paige, Fry, Stallman, Josić and Jon (2009) show that more than 50% of participants in a short-term study abroad program are more willing to engage with global activities, and that study abroad programs have important long-term impact on participants.

It is worth noting here that the student bodies in business schools have changed significantly especially in the past decade or so. IB education can no longer just try to educate domestic students to give them a global perspective; it now must also educate increasing numbers of international students, with their many different backgrounds, to understand both domestic and international business structures, environments, and cultures, that are different from these dimensions in their own countries of origin. While this increasing international diversity of student bodies provides many resources useful in IB education, it also brings many challenges in designing IB programs. This international diversity of the student body presents challenges that requires changes in both teaching and learning styles and pedagogies – presenting challenges for program administrators, instructors, and students.

As this brief review of both opportunities and challenges in experiential IB education illustrates, especially in terms of equipping students with global awareness and mindsets, the ability to understand and adopt experiential pedagogies will not only improve IB education but it also has the potential to improve all areas of business education.

Introducing this issue

This issue of JTIB focuses on mindset changes with experiential International Business educational pedagogies. Papers published in the past issues of the Journal of Teaching in International Business reflect varied IB learning environments and learning outcomes. This issue highlights the important impact of students’ personalities and varying backgrounds on the effectiveness of experiential and other pedagogies used in IB education.

The first article in the issue, “Does a Student’s Personality Influence Global Attentiveness and Internationalism in an International Business Course?” by Jiun-Shiu Chen and Jeffery Stevens of McNeese State University, and Susie S. Cox and Thomas R. Tudor of University of Arkansas at Little Rock, examines how student personality types impact IB education outcomes. The authors find that IB education has an impact on both students’ behaviors and on their attitudes toward other countries. Students with an IB education have stronger international viewpoints and are more interested in keeping up with global business and international issues. Further, the authors also find that students’ personality trait of openness to experience impacted their learning outcomes in IB courses. Students with lower or higher openness to experience benefited from IB education in terms of growth in their global awareness and attentiveness.

The second article in the issue, “Exploring Individual Factors Affecting Business Students’ Willingness to Study Abroad: A Case Study From the Caribbean”, by Arleen Hernández-Díaz Leticia M. Fernández-Morales, José C. Vega-Vilca of University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras, and Mario Córdova-Claudio of University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez, examines the individual factors affecting Caribbean students’ willingness to study or participate in an internship abroad especially as many of their studies focus on similar topics– mainly based on regions such as the US and Europe. This study provides a better understanding of the challenges and issues faced in the study abroad program and internationalization in Caribbean region.

The third article in the issue, “The Problem of Constructive Misalignment in International Business Education: A Three-Stage Integrated Approach to Enhancing Teaching and Learning”, by Shasha Zhao of Middlesex University Business School, United Kingdom, develops a three-stage integrated approach to constructively use the misalignment in international business education to improve IB education. This process uses three independent teaching methods—threshold concepts, problem-based learning, and technology-based learning—in a co-complementary and co-supporting manner. Using data from a sample of two cohorts of learners before and after the three-stage approach in a UK business school, the author empirically confirms that the new approach is likely to help instructors achieve intended outcomes more effectively.

The last article in the issue, “Classroom Response Systems and Student Performance Improvement: Local Versus International Students”, by Anson Wong of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, examines whether or not the class response system improves student performance across different cultural backgrounds. His study offers several insights that support using classroom response instruments in the classroom. Despite culture differences, the author finds that both international students and Chinese students enjoy and benefit from the use of clickers in enhancing their learning. More importantly, clickers help student remove language and communication barriers and raise their participation rate in classes.

As this brief review of the papers in this issues shows, these papers all examine how student personalities and personal factors influence the effectiveness of various pedagogies designed to maximize the use of experiential techniques in building global mindsets in IB students.

As in the past, we hope you enjoy reading this issue and that you find it thought-provoking, perhaps even providing ideas to further improve your own teaching. We would appreciate hearing your comments on this issue. We can be reached at [email protected].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Raj Aggarwal

Raj Aggarwal, PhD, is the Sullivan Professor of International Business and Finance Emeritus and the former Business Dean at the University of Akron, USA. He is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business and has won many awards for outstanding teaching and scholarship. He is also a Board Member of corporations, mutual funds, and nonprofit organizations. He is a past editor of Financial Practice and Education, a Finance and accounting area editor of the Journal of International Business Studies, and the current Editor of the Journal of Teaching in International Business. Raj Aggarwal is the author of numerous publication and is in the top third of a percent among SSRN authors ranked by downloads and has over 5,600 Google Scholar citations with an h-index of 37, and an I-10 index of over 100 (see https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=y1hrzaAAAAAJ&hl=en&cstart=160&pagesize=20).

Feng Zhan

Feng Zhan, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Boler School of Business, John Carroll University, USA. His recent publications include articles in Journal of Banking & Finance, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money, among others. He is the Assistant Editor of the Journal of Teaching in International Business.