The world or bust: Business education goes global

California's universities are taking the globalisation of education to a new level, says James Flanigan in The New York Times, "offering business courses that go beyond dry corporate case studies and broadening their collaboration with universities and businesses abroad, particularly in Asia."

The University of California's (UCLA) Anderson School of Management and the National University of Singapore have programs allowing MBA students to be awarded degrees from both universities after 15 months of taking classes in Singapore and LA, and also in Shanghai and Bangalore, India.

While The University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, in collaboration with Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, has a global MBA program involving executives from 10 countries studying in China and Los Angeles.

The Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, collaborates with the Indian Institute of Technology, Peking University in Beijing, City University of Hong Kong and others in teaching business courses around the world.
These programs are not just overseas duplications of standard courses in accounting and finance, says Flanigan. They're about learning to innovate with other cultures – a skill that is critical in today's global business environment, says Judy Olian, dean of the Anderson School at UCLA.

"We are taking entrepreneurial leaders to operate in Palestine and Israel, in India and China," says Olian, quoted in the NYT. "That has not been thought of as the mission of business schools, but it is in the emerging world of today. If we did not do this, we could be accused of staring at our own navel.”

A good illustration of the new offerings from California's universities is the Global Access Program at UCLA's Anderson School, says Flanigan. The program enrols 175 MBA candidates – average age about 33 – who are working during three years it takes to earn their degrees.

Students consult for six months at a time for international companies that want to get into the American market or simply "operate beyond their current borders,” explains Robert Foster, dean of the program. The students, who work in teams of five or six, average 500 hours of work on a typical project.

One recent graduate, Payem Tehrani, counselled ICAR Vision Systems, a developer of identification cards and equipment in Barcelona, Spain. ICAR wanted to break into the American market, but after the students surveyed that market and worked in Spain, Italy and elsewhere, they found that its equipment was not advanced enough to crack the US market, but that it had opportunities for expansion in Italy.

Tehrani, at 35-year old electrical engineer, now works for Yahoo. And ICAR, like all other corporate customers of the program, contributed $US15,000 to the Anderson School to cover some of the program's expenses, says Flanigan.

This year, the global access program is expanding to 240 students and 48 projects, reaching out to India and China, Mexico, Spain and Austria for new companies and opportunities.

American universities are prized abroad because "we have a different kind of pedagogy,” says James Ellis, dean of the Marshall School. "We are much more inclusive of students, allowing their participation on many levels, in contrast to the classic Oxford lecture model. The students learn from one another, particularly in the global classes where individuals from different cultures work together.”

Business schools break tradition in global education, James Flanigan, The New York Times