Business School Partnerships for Globalization

International partnerships are an essential tool to enable business schools to internationalize their activities. They can lead to improved research, better more internationally relevant teaching, provide staff with an international perspective, and help prepare students for careers in global business. Using case studies of four of Durham University Business School's main partnerships, the article identifies the motivations for forming partnerships, examines some of the practical management issues associated with partnership working in higher education, and details the many benefits that can be derived from such arrangements

Looking for Ways to Increase Student Motivation: Internationalisation and Value Innovation

Understanding what constitutes the perceived value of foreign education to international business students is critical for business schools in order to achieve their recruitment targets. One established method relies on a financial interpretation of the costs and benefits of business education. By contrast, this study advocates a holistic approach by employing the concept of “internal” and “external” career success as its theoretical underpinning. A survey of undergraduate Chinese students in two British business schools based on such approach provides confirmation of the importance of an individual's judgement of own success as the foundation of value-related expectations and suggests that academic practice should be concerned with a wider range of competencies and responses to individual attitudes, shifting emphasis towards a greater spectrum of social values

Perceptions of value: assessing the agent/commission model of UK higher education recruitment in Africa

The UK's higher education relationship with Africa has changed in recent years. Past associations of developmental cooperation have been superseded by market-based student recruitment seeking income for UK universities. This paper is about assessing a form of recruitment that helps underpin this new relationship: the agent/commission model. It identifies the nature of this approach to recruitment, and the processes involved. The paper also asks who benefits from the agent/commission model. The research captured a ‘snapshot’ of opinion within a case study UK university, seeking the views of agents themselves and their service users. It was found that all these actors considered the work of agents to be of value. There are certainly flaws in the agent/commission model, and wider societal implications for African states and economies, but it is suggested that agents should be given more credit for the work that they do than is presently reflected in the current literature

World class?:An investigation of globalisation, difference and international student mobility

This paper explores the motivations and meanings of international student mobility. Central to the discussion are the results of a large questionnaire survey and associated in-depth interviews with UK students enrolled in universities in six countries from around the world. The results suggest, first, that several different dimensions of social and cultural capital are accrued through study abroad. It is argued that the search for ‘world class’ education has taken on new significance. Second, the paper argues that analysis of student mobility should not be confined to a framework that separates study abroad from the wider life-course aspirations of students. It is argued that these insights go beyond existing theorisations of international student mobility to incorporate recognition of diverse approaches to difference within cultures of mobility, including class reproduction of distinction, broader notions of distinction within the life-plans of individual students, and how ‘reputations’ associated with educational destinations are structured by individuals, institutions and states in a global higher education system that produces differentially mediated geographies of international student mobilit