Recommended Courses in International Business for Graduate Business Students

Abstract

With the growing internationalization of business, there has been a concomitant growth in the internationalization of business education. Following action taken at its annual meeting in April 1974, the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) now requires an international perspective to be included in the common body of knowledge for all business schools accredited by AACSB, and many of these schools have been considering how best to implement this requirement. It is important to determine what courses and subject areas in international business should be offered to business students to best meet their needs and the needs of the organizations which hire them. In particular, it is important to find out what businessmen believe to be most useful, since it is they who employ most of our students. The purpose of this investigation, then, was to determine the opinions and recommendations of business executives on this question. More particularly, the study was made to try to shed some light on the AACSB requirement in generalized business curricula (the kind that most business students take) rather than those curricula which specialize in international business.' In addition, the study concentrated on graduate business programs, not undergraduate. A secondary objective of the study was to explore, in a preliminary way, certain practices regarding the hiring, training, and use of MBA graduates in international operations by these companies. Other, similar surveys recently have included one made in 1973 by James D. Goodnow which, however, sought the opinions of academicians rather than businessmen.2 (The author is indebted to Professor Goodnow's paper for the wording of several questions in the current study.) In 1971, G. H. Hines questioned both educators and business managers in the United States and New Zealand regarding the importance of 50 business courses.3 His work was concerned with business administration in general, however, and only about two of those courses could be considered to relate specifically to the international aspects of business. For the author's study, questionnaires were sent to 166 U.S. companies