Due to the globalisation of the corporate world, business and management education has to respond by internationalising itself in order to prepare young graduates for the employment market. This doctoral thesis examines how four small to medium sized business and management schools in France are reacting to an ever increasing globalisation process. Evidence suggests that these schools have been experiencing an increase in their internationalisation process at the dawn of the twenty-first century which can be considered as somewhat later than the more prestigious schools both in France and elsewhere. This is due to changing balance between the traditional rationales for internationalisation and also the emerging of new rationales such as customer satisfaction and survival. A case study approach was adopted to study four business schools in different regions of France, all of which were linked to and managed by the local Chamber of Commerce. The research reveals that the timing for this internationalisation process is due to several factors which have both pushed forward and prevented international development. Even when there is a clearly defined international strategy the development is not linear since the international strategy is only one strategy amongst others within the institution and at certain times other strategies may be more important and thus prevent international development. All four schools have clearly used alliances and networks to obtain the necessary resources to carry out their internationalisation; this is seen on an academic, economic and staffing levels. As regards approach, a clear pattern has emerged in all four schools observed in that they have adopted a transitional marginal approach where the internationalisation begins slowly from the outer or peripheral part of the institution and gradually moves inward to affect the institution as a whole. This approach has given rise to several outcomes that prove to be advantageous to the institution as a whole, such as an improvement in the quality of teaching, learning and research. This transitional marginal approach has also reduced the risk of the possible forces against change which are very often present especially in the world of higher education. However, the research suggests that this was not an intended outcome of the strategy but nevertheless it is seen as a possible recommendation for other organisations to take into consideration. The findings also reveal that in the future, this model may become circular or spiral in structure since one outcome related to internationalisation is the globalisation of the institutions themselves where they are beginning to be present in other countries. This again, is seen as a marginal activity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:577759 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Pon, Kevin |
| Publisher | University of Bedfordshire |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/10547/299499 |
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