Globalization of Business Schools : A Conceptual Framework

For business schools, globalization represents both an opportunity and a challenge at the same time. International networks and partnership structures offer new dimensions for educational programs. Yet, existing structures have to be adjusted. A new trend is that traditional means of internationalization are now expanded by overseas campuses, representative offices, joint education programs and research institutes towards the formation of a truly global business school. Our paper proposes a conceptual framework defining six different stages in business school globalization. In this context we distinguish between three broad types of strategies: traditional, semi-globalization and globalization strategies. For each of our model stages we display empirical evidence on the basis of best practice examples on how business schools can implement the different strategies and also move along from a traditional business school set-up to a globalized business school.