Teaching an international course in the business school: A new blended approach

ABSTRACT

This article showcases a course that is intended to address emerging educational needs related to the internationalisation of businesses. The course aims to cut across several functional areas (management, accounting, and general business) and pertains to issues confronted by managers while establishing business relationships outside their national borders. It utilises advanced educational methodologies and employs self-regulated learning along with several active learning strategies including interactive lectures, active review sessions, and ‘jigsaw’ discussions accompanied with extensive use of technology. It is designed to address how differences in international business practices can be translated into the future success (or failure) of a business partnership and to provide students with valuable insights as they prepare to be competent managers in a global business setting.

KEYWORDS:

• International education
• cultural intelligence
• experiential learning
• technology enhanced learning

Acknowledgments

We thank Andreas Zaby, Gary Grudnitski, Janie Chang and Gerald Whittenburg for their support in creating this course. We are also thankful to Dr. Doreen Mittingly, Paige Bryant, Nancy Nicholson and M. Shoaib Shirazi for their very valuable assistance in delivering, collecting and analysing the results of the survey. We are also grateful to two anonymous Academy of International Business 2015 annual conference referees and participants of the 2016 annual PACIBER meeting for their valuable comments. All errors are our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Some academic findings report that traditional lectures with a perceived excess of PowerPoint presentations stimulate the onset of boredom among students more than other interactive forms of class delivery (Sharp, Hemmings, Kay, Murphy, & Elliot, 2017).

2. We have no specific information on the cultural composition of the student body. The information available to us is that neither group of students was culturally homogenous as indicated by their names.

3. Both universities standardised their student evaluations. We should note that the German university partner was unable to allow us to expand the survey instrument for their students. This standardisation requirement limited our ability to assess the German students’ perspective more thoroughly. The survey instrument is available upon request.

4. We did not have an opportunity to survey the impact of meeting face-to-face after weeks of collaborating virtually. However, during personal interactions with instructors, students did mention a significant improvement in the efficiency and responsiveness of their teammates once the students met and spent some time working together in person.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Victoria Krivogorsky

Dr. Victoria Krivogorsky is a Professor in the Charles W. Lamden School of Accountancy at San Diego State University. During her affiliation with American Academia, she has published more than 30 scholarly articles and has presented her ideas to over 50 national and international conferences. Her research interests include the issues of corporate capital structure, decision-making in highly uncertain environments, corporate governance and control. During her career, she held visiting teaching and academic positions at numerous renowned universities around the world. She is teaching Financial Accounting and International Financial Reporting on the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Mark J. Ballam

Mark J. Ballam serves as Managing Director for San Diego State University’s Center for International Business Education and Research (SDSU CIBER) where he responsible for the overall strategy and implementation of the programme including budget, resources, advocacy, and communications. Ballam recently completed two terms as president of the Consortium for Undergraduate International Business Educators and served as president of the Association of International Business Education and Research. Ballam serves on the Advisory Committee for Southwestern College’s Small Business Development and International Trade Center. He has been a longtime member of the Academy of International Business (AIB), Scholars Without Borders, and Phi Beta Delta, the honour society for international scholars.