Over the past 30 years there has been interesting shifts in the approach to international business education taken by US business schools. Three decades ago colleges and universities were thrilled to have their students involved in study abroad programs. While most of them went to the UK for their “international experience” remaining safe in knowing a single language they came back from their foreign experience with a feeling of pride having, at least, visited other European countries. It was during that time that Universities were deeply involved in what I considered academic colonialism. That is, they felt the American way of business education, as was their form of democracy, the best in the world. Armed with such beliefs they extended their reaches by implanting satellite campuses on foreign soil while repatriating the tuition revenue. This worked well for two decades until European schools began offering their own English language MBA programs. While still based on the MBA curriculum formula that was designed to get US smokestack industries back on the consumer production path after the second world war they became tough competition for the US outposts. The nail in the coffin appears to have been the AACSB shift from what never made sense, their 50-mile rule, to a more logical overall accreditation perspective including the faculty ratios in the foreign ventures. At the same time US institutions were retreating from European and Asian ventures due to declining enrollments they were beginning to put less emphasis on the foreign experience of their students. Unfortunately for international education, much of this shift was due to the financial pressures being felt by the loss of student revenue when they went abroad rather than sound educational logic. The newer idea was to open the doors to the influx of Chinese students desiring a US education and experience so as to back fill their declining enrollments with well healed Asians.
Many of the schools that maintained international study abroad relationships found an interesting, yet perhaps of questionable ethics, answer to the revenue problem by charging their abroad students three to five times what the same student would pay by simply showing up and registering at the foreign school. The European model of international education is rooted in the excellent Erasmus program (short for the European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) which promotes student movement among EU nations. In contrast, today’s US international model seems to be a focus of a few schools that have joint ventured with top foreign institutions to offer a combined degree. The majority of these relationships seem to be in China at the advanced degree level. This approach offers the student a richer combination of local management perspectives tied to a prestigious American institution’s brand. The result of this marriage has been to surge some Chinese institutions to the very top of the academic rankings at the expense of those more seemingly short-sighted institutions that have failed to recognize both the increasing and broader rankings competitive base as well as the high quality and impact of the newer institutions.
The US political climate of secure the borders and “make America great again” thorough increased tariffs and walls does seem to have had a subtle influence on business schools’ perspective of what constitutes an international business degree education and what constitutes an international business school student. While it appears that the concept of internationalization has fallen out of favor while, in reality, most larger firms have become increasingly international in both financing and production. Those who taught international business 20 and 30 years ago felt that the course content would shortly be collapsed into the other courses in the program making all courses international in nature. This would make the stand-alone international business class irrelevant. This does not seem to have materialized and, interesting enough, we now find stand-alone international business classes not only in the US but in South America, Europe, and Asia. I recall reading in his book, Shift, that Ghosn the then president of Nissan held three executive meetings a month: one in Japanese, one in French and one in a shared language English. As I write this editorial he, perhaps like US international education, has fallen from grace and languishes in (Japanese) confinement waiting for someone to make a decision on his future.
The Journal of Transnational Management and the IMDA
The Journal of Transnational Management seeks the interesting balance in maintaining its self as a high quality professional publication while continuing to distinguish itself as a leader in providing authors from developing nation’s editorial assistance. This is deemed essential in order to optimize the opportunity for these authors to present their management articles to an international audience. The journal has a dedicated editorial board that is multinational in scope and prepared to provide the assistance needed to encourage authors from nations that are not the traditional contributors with their submissions. The journal, in addition to research publications, is interested in receiving media/book reviews. Information concerning the JTMD relating to past volumes and submission information is available on the web site of the IMDA www.imda.cc.