Individualism and collectivism in business school pedagogy: a research agenda for internationalising the home management student

Abstract

The argument presented in this paper is that today's workplaces and universities both require and promote individual and collective responsibility for work and that students need to be adequately prepared for this. UK national culture has been characterised as highly individualist. Therefore, internationalisation of home management students in the UK (and other individualist cultures) may require a rebalancing towards collectivity. Ultimately, however, the goal should be to achieve an appropriate balance between individualism and collectivism to prepare the home student to work in diverse national cultures that reflect these dimensions differently. The paper concludes with a research agenda to develop balanced curricula and pedagogy to prepare home management students for their future internationalised lives.

Keywords:

• collectivism
• home student
• individualism
• internationalisation

Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to the four anonymous reviewers.