B-Schools Struggle to Get Global

By DIANA MIDDLETON

Business schools like to tout their focus on globalization, but a new report from a b-school accrediting agency says most of their strategies don't go far enough.

To boost globalization, many M.B.A. programs in the U.S. require students to complete internships abroad. Schools are also beefing up case studies that focus on international companies and partnering with foreign schools by sending faculty abroad and exchanging students.

These partnerships can be risky, according to the report, released Thursday by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Schools' reputations could be tarnished depending on the schools it chooses. Schools also often shoulder "severe" financial costs to expand their global footprint, the report says.

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An artist's rendering of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business campus in Kunshan, China, slated to open in 2012.

Finding ways to maintain program quality abroad has been a challenge, says Blair Sheppard, dean of the Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. Rather than rely solely on a partner school, Duke opted to build its own campuses and fly over its own professors to preserve quality, Mr. Sheppard says. The school is building campuses in New Delhi and Kunshan, China and has campuses in St. Petersburg, Russia and London. "When schools rely solely on partnerships, they're just putting their toes in the water," he says. "Curriculum could suffer without real commitment to the region." Duke has spent "tens of millions" on the endeavor, with the China campus estimated to cost $360 million total, he says.

Schools say globalization efforts will make graduates more desirable for global firms and stimulate more prestigious faculty research.

In May, the University of California-Irvine's Merage School of Business will sign an agreement with Fudan University, says Andy Policano, dean of the school and board chair of AACSB. While the school is approached several times per month for potential partnerships, the faculty often says no, Mr. Policano says. "Before we can start thinking about a partnership, we have to make sure faculty members actually want to spend time at that university," he says.

The winners and losers of the global experiment, started decades ago, haven't yet been determined, says Robert Bruner, dean of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business chair of the task force that wrote the AACSB report. Many schools established ambitious international alliances only to pull out when enrollments and difficult partnerships didn't meet levels to keep the alliance sustainable, he says. Two notable examples: Cass Business School in London pulled out of a partnership in China in 2008 and the business school at the State University of New York, Buffalo left a different Chinese partnership in 2004. Darden has had its own problems finding partners with enough prestige to support the school's brand.

"These alliances are like speed dating," Mr. Bruner says. "It's difficult going from the early stage of a relationship to a meaningful, long-term alliance."

Write to Diana Middleton at diana.middleton@wsj.com