The views of American Multinational CEOs on Internationalized Business Education for Prospective Employees
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journals such as the Journal of InterniationalBusiness Studies, Journal of Accountancy, and International Development Review. Ball and McCulloch are co-authors
of InternationalBusiness,recentlypublishedin the fifth editionby Irwin.
Received: October 1991; Revised: June, September & October 1992; Accepted: October 1992. 383
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JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONALBUSINESS STUDIES, SECOND QUARTER 1993
For more than two decades, various industry leaders have been exhorting American business schools to, in the words of Hewlett-Packard CEO, John Young, "traintheir students to think internationally" [Academy of Management Newsletter 1987]. Increasing international involvement by U.S. firns as well as mounting global competition from foreign multinationals have contributed greatly to this perceived need by American businesspeople. Partly in response to these exhortations, but also because business educators themselves had become aware that all business graduates must have some knowledge of internationalbusiness, the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), in 1974, broadened its standardsto require that business curriculareflect the worldwide as well as the domestic aspects of business. Nehrt's study in 1977 seemed to confirm the correctness of AACSB's decision. He concluded that every manager should know the basics of internationalbusiness [Nehrt 1977]. Much laterin 1987, thirteenyears afterAACSB had changed its requirements, leaders from all sectors of the countrywere still recommendingthat "business schools must internationalize the entire course of study" as one means for this country to regain its internationalcompetitiveness. Sixty-five prominent figures from business, labor, academia and government prepared a report for the American Assembly thatstated "business schools must internationalize the entirecourse of study includingcomparativebusiness practicesand foreign languages and the analysis of other countries and cultures" [Starr 1988]. But, do CEOs of the majorAmerican multinationalfirms generally recognize the value of an internationalized business education for all employees in management? Do they, in fact, believe that it is importantthat all business graduates they hire have some education in the international aspects of business? This seemed to be the case in Nehrt's 1977 study of business leaders. He reportedthat70% of the respondentsdisagreed with a statementthat"business graduates can learn all of the international aspects of business on the job" [Nehrt 1977]. Ricks and Czinkotafound that internationalbusiness executives were in agreement on the importance of international business education, but admittedthat "this opinion might have been influenced by their position" [Ricks and Czinkota 1979]. In a survey conducted by Kobrin in 1984, only 27% of the international executives of Fortune 500 firms that responded, stated that university
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