International Business Curricula: Responding to COVID-19 Challenges

1. COVID-19 and the international business curricula

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant changes to the world and is still impacting our work and life. There are likely to be some permanent impacts on our lives and higher education of this pandemic. In fact, higher education was in decline well before the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, US College enrollments have been declining every year since 2011 (down three million from 20 million students since then), while public university costs have increased 28% over the same period (Lee 2022). This decline in the number of students is likely to be long-lasting as it is driven by demographics, i.e., too few babies are born in the US. In addition, the COVID-19 led to disruptions in supply chains, and the slowdown in economies meant even fewer resources were available to higher education (Alon 2020). During the pandemic, traditional education methods heavily relied on face-to-face interactions became dangerous. Thus, COVID-19 hit US higher education with an enormous negative impact. The impact was similarly devastating in other developed countries and often more severe in less developed countries.

As such, the effect of COVID 19 on higher education has been immediate, disruptive, and overwhelming, and institutions around the world had to react and respond quickly to the spread of the virus. We hope that the global pandemic will end soon in the future, but we also expect that some of the economic and social changes caused by the pandemic will remain even after the pandemic is vanquished. Business educators need to adapt to the enduring changes to both the business world and higher education, which is even more true for international business educators. The impact of the global pandemic on international business, compared to other business disciplines, is undoubtfully more intrusive and radical, as the IB discipline sets its roots in operating at an international or global scale.

In the following few paragraphs, we highlight some challenges that IB educators face in the process of adapting to the “new normal” of the post-pandemic world. But, more importantly, we want to encourage educators to channel these COVID-19-related challenges into opportunities for developing pedagogies, curriculums, and programs that can better satisfy the shifting nature of education, especially in the IB domain.

First, the COVID-19 global pandemic has affected the global workforce significantly and created new demands in the skillsets of IB students. For example, preparing students to succeed in a teleworking environment is important given the accelerating digitalization within organizations (Krishnamurthy 2020). The remote working environment, the dangers of meeting face-to-face, and difficulties in global travel require IB employees to communicate and work virtually with international teams effectively via the internet.

Training IB students to work with people of diverse backgrounds and cultures is essential for IB education (Aggarwal and Goodell 2016; Aggarwal and Wu 2020). Pivoting such training to online channels may not be just a short-term need for accommodating the international travel restriction, but rather a core skill adapting to the new work fashion in the global workforce. While virtual meetings and associated technologies are pretty good, there seems to be general agreement that they are not as good as face-to-face meetings. So, this difference must be accounted for in redesigning IB teaching pedagogies.

Experiential learning pedagogies that utilize technology and facilitate the online collaboration of teams of people from different regions will be an important element in future IB education. For example, Crowne’s study (2020) on peer evaluations within student global virtual teams sheds light on the students’ perspective of teamwork effectiveness when working with global teammates via the internet. In another example, Hernandez-Pozas and Carreon-Flores (2019) propose and pilot a novel method of utilizing virtual reality to facilitate students’ cultural experience and help students practice negotiation and intercultural communication.

Second, virtual distant education is here to stay. Virtual education permits many advantages for students in terms of flexibility. For synchronous education, students are freed from the requirements of geography – they can be anywhere as long as they have access to the internet, with broadband access preferred. For nonsynchronous education, students and teachers are freed from both geography and time (to some extent). Not only can they be anywhere, but they also have some flexibility in when to attend to the learning process. These are significant advantages of virtual education, and so it is particularly important to develop pedagogies and teaching skills using virtual technologies.

In the case of IB teaching, it may take some creative thinking. Educators can teach some IB content virtually without a great deal of changes in pedagogies. For example, straightforward facts on different political-economy international structures and global institutional differences such as transparency and governance (Aggarwal and Goodell 2014) and foreign exchange risk management skills. However, other critical IB-related behavioral and mind-set skills will require pedagogical changes that are more substantial.

Third, the global pandemic has interrupted the delivery of many state-of-the-art IB pedagogies of cross-cultural learning for IB students. Traditional study abroad programs are affected substantially by the pandemic as countries tighten their policies of sending and accepting international students. Restrictions on studying abroad also reduce cultural immersion on universities’ home campuses with fewer international students. These factors have diminished students’ chance of cultural learning through socialization. It requires a considerable effort of IB educators to build alternative teaching designs and extra-curriculum activities that can generate culture immersion.

Fourth, the Covid19-related pause of many study-abroad programs immediately influences the reduction of university support for these programs. According to NAFSA (2021), the Association of International Educators, “Many U.S. higher education institutions across the country have reported that they are reducing hours, furloughing employees, and eliminating positions due to the cancellation of study abroad programs, resulting in thousands of job losses.” It remains to be seen if people with these skill sets will be reinstated. Countries are reopening their borders and lessening the restrictions of foreign visits; however, the supporting resources within higher education may not rebound fast enough to catch up with the study abroad demand. Faculty and students involved in studying abroad may need to prepare for the lack of supporting resources while facing still complex and everchanging international travel policies and restrictions. IB programs will also need to strengthen their offering in ensuring students’ and faculty’s mental health and mitigating their mental pressure likely to be caused by higher uncertainties and contingencies of studying aboard.

Last, along with the challenges come opportunities for initiatives such as virtual global education programs (Whalen 2020) and interdisciplinary collaborations. In response to the pandemic, many schools have enhanced online education infrastructures, and faculty strengthen experience in online teaching. Beech and Anseel (2020) observe the emergence of large collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to solving COVID-19 problems. With its success deeply embedded in culture and social understanding, IB education will gain significant benefits from cross-discipline collaborations in research and teaching between the business and liberal arts faculties. Such cooperation can spark new pedagogies and programs that blend effective learnings of IB subjects and international cultures. For example, the paper by Carlos Sampaio, Mónica Régio, and Margarida Morgado in this issue discusses the collaboration between accounting and English faculty to incorporate content and language integrated learning into IB subjects. More studies on how interdisciplinary pedagogies facilitate high culture-immersion learning will enhance IB programs.

In summary, IB education has faced a very significant interruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, these challenges are forces that encourage IB educators to develop and update more contemporary methods that embrace technology to internationalize the business education programs in this digital age. COVID-19 has vastly accelerated these changes.

2. Introducing this issue

This issue of JTIB features four research articles and a book review about internationalizing the business curriculum, from the program level to the course level.

The first article, titled “Integrating Problem-Based Learning with International Internships in Business Education” by Roberto Hermann of Nord University, Marcelo Amaral of Universidade Federal Fluminense Pólo Universitário de Volta Redonda, and Marilia Bossle of Instituto Federal do Rio Grande do Sul – Campus Bento Goncalves, present a pedagogical action research test that was conducted over two courses for international business internships in a Norwegian-Brazilian context for bachelor’s and master’s students. This paper contributes to the international business teaching literature in the following ways: First, the validated teaching framework argues for international internships that are linked to loosely defined problems at the host organization, which the student self-scopes and connects based on their theoretical knowledge from other courses. Second, by providing an in-depth discussion of problem-based learning and its applicability in international business practicums, we address the existing gap in the field regarding the pedagogical foundations of how students connect theory to practice during international internships. Third, the framework serves as a practical guideline for teaching and administrative staff who wish to develop international internship programs at home universities, supporting their ability to connect the practical aspects established in the literature with the additional organizational requirements arising from working with hosting organizations overseas.

The second paper, titled “Implementing Integrated Content and Language in Accounting classes: Implication for International Business Teaching” by Carlos Sampaio, Mónica Régio and Margarida Morgado of Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco, approaches the collaborative work of an Accounting teacher and an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teacher in tertiary education through the process of planning, designing, and implementation of a teaching module on Accounting. Results show that the teachers’ collaborative work for the construction and implementation of the integrated Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) module produced positive outcomes for the teaching and learning process. Furthermore, students found the used methods highly motivating and engaging, contributing positively to their future professional careers. It is argued that the CLIL approach may be beneficial and approximates the environment of International Business, by demanding collaboration of individuals from different contextual backgrounds, whose main language is not English and promoting bilingualism and cross-cultural competence development.

The third article, titled “Do Accounting Textbooks Inculcate Global Mindsets: An Analysis of Textbooks Adopted in Indonesia” by Irsyadillah Irsyadillah of Syiah Kuala University, Ahmed Hassan Ahmed of University of Dundee, and Walaa ElKelish of University of Sharjah, examines the content of introductory financial accounting (IFA) textbooks to answer the questions: (1) do the textbooks inculcate global mind-sets? (2) How and the extent to which the textbooks reflect global mind-sets? The authors analyzed the textbooks by attentively read the texts, followed by an in-depth discussion among the researchers to establish major representations of the texts. Findings from the analysis indicate that instead of promoting a broader view of the world that might instill and foster global mind-sets in business students, the textbooks narrow-mindedly inculcate only a single perspective, which dominantly draws on the ethical values and assumptions of Anglo-American capitalism. Consequently, students are deprived of a critical understanding of the subject as well as denying them from developing a mind-set required by the global business environments. Thus, this paper calls for recasting the presentation of accounting knowledge within IFA textbooks by inculcating multiplicity rather than uniformity to develop cognitive complexity. Moreover, accounting educators should provide students supplementary readings that offer alternative frameworks for more critical reflection. These recommendations are a way forward to improve teaching international business (IB) education in business schools by facilitating an in-depth understanding of IB in individual business functional disciplines.

The fourth article, titled “MBA Internalization at Selected Elite Business Schools: Challenges of Geographic Dispersion and Coordination” by Evodio Kaltenecker Retto de Queiroz of Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, developes a taxonomy for the governance of elite business schools based on two factors: (i) their geographic dispersion and (ii) the coordination between the main campus, international branch campuses, research centers, and other business schools. The paper contributes to the business school´s internationalization efforts because the research shows a dominant form of governance, the Center of Excellence (CoE). However, the dynamic context of business schools allows three different paths for their internationalization. First, from the CoE to Alliance, schools gradually cooperate with other programs to compete globally. Second, from the CoE to Ecosystem, that occurs when programs grow organically. Third, from the CoE to the Center of Gravity governance; in this case, the CoE moves toward a high level of resources while keeping complexity low because of the lack of interfaces between the business school and other institutions. Finally, some business schools show ambidexterity regarding the governance of their units and subsidiaries.

Also included in this issue is a book review by Raj Aggarwal, entitled “Demographics and the global Business Environment.” In this review, Dr. Aggarwal examines the content of Demography and the Global Business Environment by Alfred Marcus and Mazhar Islam. The book is suggested as supplements to the traditional IB textbooks for a first look at the role of demographics on business activity.

As in the past, we hope you enjoy reading this issue and that you find it thought-provoking – perhaps even giving you ideas to improve your own teaching. We would appreciate hearing your comments on this issue.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Raj Aggarwal

Raj Aggarwal, PhD, CFA, is Member of the Board of the Kent State University Foundation and the Sullivan Professor of International Business and Finance Emeritus and the former Business Dean at the University of Akron, USA. He is a Fellow and a former VP and program chair of the Academy of International Business. Aggarwal has been a Fulbright Research Scholar to Southeast Asia and the winner of a Larosier award on the best essay on International Finance at the Prague 2000 joint meetings of the World Bank and the IMF. He has won many other awards for outstanding teaching and scholarship. Raj Aggarwal is the author of twelve books and over a hundred scholarly publications and is in the top one-third of a percent among SSRN authors ranked by downloads and has over 9,200 Google Scholar citations with an h-index of 50, and an I-10 index of over 140). He is included in the Research.com list of the top 1% scholars in Economics and Finance globally and in the Nature/Stanford University Global List of the Top 2% of the Worlds Scientists.

He is or has been 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.

Yinglu Wu

Yinglu Wu, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Boler College of Business, John Carroll University, USA. Her recent publications include articles in Journal of Interactive Marketing, Decision Support Systems, Journal of Macromarketing, and Journal of Teaching in International Business. She is the Assistant Editor of the Journal of Teaching in International Business.