Exchanges or overseas field trips are common for today's MBA students but some go further and wider. Following their inauguration class in Washington DC with 70 other students from various countries in September, the 15 students enrolled in Chinese University's OneMBA programme will head for the Netherlands and Poland in March, prior to study trips in Mexico and Brazil next autumn.
Now in its third year, the programme involves five business schools - CUHK, the Fundacao Getulio Vargas in Brazil, Mexico's Tecnologico De Monterrey EGADE, the RSM Erasmus University in the Netherlands and the Kenan-Flagler Business School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was designed to develop senior executives' 'cultural fluency'.
Faculty from the schools have jointly designed a global curriculum integrating international perspectives with best practices from Asia, Europe, North America and South America. Students are split into global teams to work on joint projects during the 21-month programme. They get to meet each other several times during the period and are expected to communicate by e-mail and Centra, the advanced computer system for virtual learning, each week for their projects.
'That is basically how global teams work today,' said Mike Hall, administrative director of CUHK's OneMBA programme. 'One obvious advantage of the programme is that it allows one to develop an international network, an asset for becoming a leader in multinational firms. Seventy per cent of our graduates this year had a job promotion within their studying period. We'd like to bring in potential high fliers,' said Mr Hall, adding that he was hoping to expand the number of local recruits to a maximum of 25 next year.
All the students will gather again in Asia in May, 2007, studying in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
To create a flagship MBA programme, the University of Hong Kong will place its full-time MBA students at the London Business School for three months from next year. 'We will try to accommodate part-time MBA students who can afford the time and also want to study in London. The students will take elective courses there. The partnership can help them greatly expand their networks,' said HKU MBA programme director Chris Chan Wai-hong. Graduates of the programme will be regarded as full alumni of the London school, enhancing their networking opportunities further, though they will be conferred a HKU degree only.
