Short Term and Virtual International Immersions for Graduate Business Leadership Students

Abstract

The need to understand global contexts in business studies is driving more flexibility and creativity with international immersion curriculum. Traditional study abroad programs or international internships require commitments of several months or more and have conventional structure. They are also mostly designed for undergraduate or full time master’s level students who can be abroad for entire terms. This is not possible for most working professional students, especially in graduate or doctoral distance education programs. The rise in flexible graduate degree programs has expanded opportunities for working professionals to pursue degrees concurrently with their careers. Those programs have students whose daily activities are connected to knowledge application and who require practice-driven education and experiences. This means that faculty must find creative solutions to effectively deliver global experience to students with limited discretionary time. This chapter discusses globalization in the business leadership curriculum, the need for shorter-term and virtual international immersions in graduate education, current approaches in the field, and challenges and potential solutions to improve the effectiveness of these experiences.