Putting the ‘International’ into the MBA

Abstract

I said at the outset that MBAs are often criticised for being national in origin and curriculum, narrow in focus, overly academic and for attracting too young a course membership. I have begun to show how these criticisms have been, or are, being countered in many Business Schools. On one of these criticisms all Business Schools are agreed, that there is a need to break the national origins from whence they came. Many leading schools have made clear their intention to internationalise all of their activities, not just MBAs. Again, being provocative, it is worth saying that no Business School has yet developed a genuinely International MBA. That is not for the want of trying. Before looking at a strategy for internationalising the MBA we need to look at what has been done already and identify the shortcomings recognised to date.