AACSB Urges B-Schools to Adapt to a Global World

Related Articles

• How you’ll earn an MBA degree in the future 0 10.Sep
• Top Ideas for a Better MBA 0 20.Jan
• Five MBA Trends for 2015 0 23.Feb

Graduate and undergraduate business programs must do better at making globalization central to the B-school curriculum, the accrediting group says

Business schools are lagging behind in preparing students for careers in an increasingly global world and need to become more strategic about how they weave cross-border content into their programs, according to a report released today by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

The study, titled “The Globalization of Managements Education: Changing International Structures, Adaptive Strategies, and the Impact on Institutions,” was presented to deans at an AACSB conference in Phoenix. It suggests that business schools need to make deeper and more sustained efforts across the curriculum to help students understand the challenges of conducting business in different cultures and countries. Robert Bruner, chairman of the AACSB Globalization of Management Education Task Force, which wrote the report, calls the study “a real wake-up call” for business schools.

“If we drill into the curriculum of the schools, there is a large gap between aspiration and achievement,” says Bruner, who also serves as dean of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business (Darden Full-Time MBA Profile). “Schools have a long way to go when it comes to globalizing their curricula, and the majority are still in their infancy in figuring out how to do that.”