Innovative Study Abroad and Student Intercultural Skills

Nowadays, managers are facing more critical problems, such as Climate Change and Rain Forest Destruction, or the Emergence of New Pandemics, just to name a few. Global perspectives are a prerequisite in any steps to manage them successfully. In an increasingly globalizing world, such intercultural learning and global perspectives are ever more important (Aggarwal 2011). In the literature on IB education, considerable attention has been devoted to study-abroad learning and programs. Study abroad pedagogy plays a crucial role in internationalizing Business and other curricula, for it provides direct and immersive experiential learning opportunities for students. Studying abroad can yield numerous positive learning outcomes, with enhanced intercultural competencies and global perspectives at the core (Aggarwal and Goodell 2015; Ramírez 2019). In many, perhaps most, cases, the study abroad experience is the life-transforming part of participating students’ higher education.

However, studying abroad comes with many restrictions related to international travel and costs, limiting its accessibility to a wider student population. Therefore, it is especially important for IB educators to explore innovative forms of study abroad, experiment with program adjustments, and seek effective alternatives to overcome the limitations of traditional study abroad programs. For example, some perhaps admittedly slightly less effective alternatives could include total immersion programs and working with local immigrant communities.

When designing study-abroad programs, duration is an important element to consider, as the trip length will significantly shape the breadth and depth of the immersion experience and the effectiveness of the resulting learning. Compared to long-term study abroad that lasts as long as or longer than a full academic semester, short-term programs (typically eight weeks or shorter) are usually organized in a cohort or group format, with a predefined curriculum for all participants. This approach allows the program leader or faculty to take greater control over the experiential and learning components, thereby maximizing the learning opportunities for the students. The shorter programs are also generally cheaper and less disruptive for students, encouraging wider participation.

The second element to consider is the destination. In long-term programs, students tend to have more freedom in choosing their study abroad destinations. Historically, the United States and European Union have consistently been the top regions attracting study-abroad students. However, there is an emerging trend of students opting for nontraditional destinations, such as in Asia, Latin America, and Africa (Wells 2006). The number of students who choose to travel to Asian countries, including China, Japan, and South Korea, has steadily grown since 2000 but dropped significantly since 2019 (Institute of International Education 2022). Researchers have investigated students’ willingness to study abroad (e.g., Hernández-Díaz et al. 2016; Pope et al. 2014; Sánchez, Fornerino, and Zhang 2006) and factors influencing their choices of destination (e.g., Singh and Srivastava 2018). When making decisions for long-term study abroad, students tend to consider factors such as the host education system, university reputation, and internship and employment opportunities (e.g., Teng and Wei Khong 2015). In contrast, for short-term programs, the destination selection is more likely to be incorporated into the curriculum design and become an integral part of the pedagogy. For instance, the destination can be chosen for its cultural differences from the home country, alignment with the curriculum subject matter, social and environmental suitability for specific learning goals like service learning, and the availability of local partnerships.

The third aspect of studying abroad revolves around the learning components. As previously mentioned, short-term programs generally offer more controlled experiences; however, the challenge lies in maximizing the learning experience within the limited exposure in another country. The literature has proposed many experiential learning components that can promote more engagement, facilitate deeper reflection of the culture and society, and develop cross-cultural skills. The Journal of Teaching in International Business has published numerous papers in this area. For example, incorporating service immersion components (e.g., Harrison and Palmer 2019; Wu and Martin 2018) to address issues related to social entrepreneurship, social justice, and sustainability; designing internship and project-related components with local organizations to facilitate cultural and business interactions during the trip (e.g., Niendorf and Alberts 2017; Suarez, Nishikawa Chavez, and Ruiz 2020); infusing other cultural activities to encourage more extensive exploration of destination’s culture (Doyle, Helms, and Westrup 2004).

The fourth element focuses on the services associated with studying abroad that can facilitate students’ traveling, living, and learning experiences. Researchers find that in addition to trip management, various factors during the pre- and post-trip stages can contribute to a more successful and satisfying study-abroad experience. These factors include trip planning, such as the selection of leading faculty and local partners, work allocation among personnel, and preliminary visits to the destinations (Henthorne, Miller, and Hudson 2001; Luethge 2004). Student pre-trip preparation, such as language learning, cultural training, and international travel readiness, also plays a crucial role (e.g., Blevins, Ramírez, and Wight 2020). Additionally, guided or unguided experience reflection and discussion both during and after the trip (e.g., Deloach et al. 2003; Wu and Martin 2018) are critical for enhancing learning in a study abroad experience.

Although study abroad has drawn significant attention from educators and researchers, and the benefits of study abroad have been widely discussed, we believe that there is still a need to continue to examine this pedagogy in order to address the limitations of traditional study abroad formats and adapt to the evolving educational needs and changing external environments such as visa requirements. For instance, the increasing popularity of alternative destinations in fast-growing economic regions of Latin America, Asia, and Africa requires a reevaluation of program design to align with their unique cultural, social, and environmental circumstances. Furthermore, as indicated above, the high cost of international travel remains a barrier for many students, innovations to reduce the costs and extent of student life disruption in traditional study abroad programs are critical to widening the learning benefits of the study abroad experience to include a higher percentage of students. Finally, it is also valuable to explore ways to incorporate hybrid and flexible course delivery formats into study abroad designs to reduce the cost while maintaining learning effectiveness. In this issue, we have selected three articles that discuss cultural learning through study abroad and alternative methods. We hope that these papers will inspire new ideas for improving and adapting study-abroad pedagogy.

1. Introducing this issue

The first article, titled “Domestic Study Abroad Offers Advantages Without the High Cost: Leveraging Diversity in the US.” by Hope Torkornoo of Kennesaw State University, Rajib Sanyal of Saint Leo University, and Turgut H Guvenli of Minnesota State University Mankato, presents an alternative model to studying abroad in which the culturally diverse, internationally oriented cities of North America – New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and Houston, among others – can serve as domestic alternatives where a curated set of experiences and learning opportunities can provide educational outcomes akin to those obtained through traditional study abroad programs, at a substantially lower cost to a larger and more diverse student body. A case study, that is easily replicable, is showcased. Limitations of this pedagogical alternative and guidelines for instructors are discussed.

The second paper, titled “US. Undergraduate Business Students and Short-term Study Abroad: An Exploratory Study on Cross-cultural Development” by Nikolaus Butz, Jim Servi, Jason Davis, Brooke Brewbaker, and Andrea Galewski of University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, examines how participation in study abroad enhanced the interculturality of undergraduate business students. Participants included two cohorts of US students participating in a short-term biennial study abroad program in China. The data were student’ scores on The Intercultural Effectiveness Scale (IES), a 52-item Likert scale spanning nine dimensions: continuous learning, self-awareness, exploration, interpersonal engagement, world orientation, relationship development, hardiness, positive regard, and emotional resilience. The IES was completed pre and post trip. Additional data were collected from the students’ open-ended journals that they wrote while participating in the study abroad program. Quantitative findings revealed that mean scores increased significantly between Time 1 (pre-trip) and Time 2 (post-trip) for most dimensions of the IES. Qualitative findings showed that three main themes impact student experiences: Travel, Memories, and Culture. Additional qualitative findings revealed that the Enjoyment and Challenges that students experience as part of a formal study abroad curriculum enhanced attainment of learning outcomes.

The third article, titled “An experiential learning approach for teaching appropriate assertiveness: an example of Indian management students” by Papiya De of NMIMS and Medha Bakhshi of Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, underscores the need for including assertiveness skills training for international business students amid the growing demand for other interpersonal skills such as empathetic communication, strong listening capabilities, conflict handling, and tackling difficult conversations. While these skills increasingly dominate the screening criteria of recruiters, making these the most “sought after” employability skills across the globe, the authors contend that appropriate assertiveness is a critical skill especially in cross-cultural communication contexts to establish strong interpersonal relationships and align communication to the globally accepted norms of organizational behavior. The paper provides practitioners with insights to design an assertiveness teaching module and outlines a portfolio of experiential learning activities and approaches including assignment design, module architecture, deliverables and rubrics, models and frameworks, and role-play resources that can be used to impart assertiveness training. It further discusses the implications for curriculum design and presents a case for adopting an integrative approach to teaching appropriate assertiveness, embedding it across other communication modules to strengthen the efficacy of learning.

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 Boards of the Kent State University Foundation and Ideastream Public Media 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 10,000 Google Scholar citations with a h-index of over 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 in terms of impact on their field. 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.