You Manage It! 1: Global American Universities Moving Overseas
According to a recent report by the Chronicle of Higher Education, “[t]oday almost every American university that can afford official letterhead seems to have an international strategy. Although such strategies differ widely, one common element in many is an interest in establishing a branch campus in another part of the world.” Hundreds of branch campuses of U.S. universities now operate overseas, and business schools are generally at the forefront. Here are a few current examples:
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▪ Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Nevada have opened up campuses in Singapore, a country that has declared its intention to attract 150,000 international students in the near future.
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▪ Johns Hopkins University has a budget of $20 million for its 100,000-square-foot joint venture with Nanyung University in China.
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▪ The president of New York University (NYU), John Sexton, has appeared in television talk shows with Bill Moyers and Richard Heffner to sell his vision of a global university linked by global technology, and taught by global professors. As part of this vision, NYU has already opened branch campuses in Buenos Aires, Shanghai, Singapore, and Tel Aviv, with more coming soon.
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▪ Many traditional U.S. public universities are also entering the race to open foreign branches. For example, Michigan State is setting out for Dubai, while Florida State is heading for Panama.
Apart from the expansion of branch campuses overseas, U.S. universities at home are globalizing rapidly. For instance, 10 percent of the freshmen at the University of Iowa come from foreign high schools. According to the most recent figures by the Institute of International Education, in any single year, more than 200,000 new students come to the United States from China and India alone. At last count, more than half of the PhD’s in mathematics, the sciences, and engineering and a growing proportion of PhD’s in business are nonresident aliens.
Critical Thinking Questions
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17-13. From a human resource perspective, what are the benefits and the pitfalls of a U.S. university pursuing a global strategy as discussed in this case? Explain.
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17-14. Do you think the trend discussed in the case will help companies hire more skilled managers and employees to staff foreign operations? Explain.
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17-15. Some companies agree that the move toward internationalization by U.S. universities primarily reflect an attempt to get more money because foreign buyers are willing to pay top dollar to obtain a degree from a U.S. institution. Do you agree? Explain.
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17-16. Assume that you have two potential candidates for an entry-level expatriate position, one who graduated from a branch campus of a U.S. university overseas and one who graduated from the main campus of the same university in the United States. Also assume that each candidate has equal qualifications. Which candidate would you prefer? Explain.
Team Exercise
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17-17. Form teams of five. Each team will come up with a list of five positives and five negatives for the trend discussed in the case. Each team will outline a set of implications of what this trend means for HR practices on a global basis.
Experiential Exercise: Team
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17-18. Form an even number of teams of five members each, with one pro team and one con team working for the same university. The pro team is asked to defend the advantage of opening a branch campus, while the con team is asked to take the opposite position. The teams are asked to debate their views in class, with the instructor serving as moderator.
Experiential Exercise: Individual
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17-19. Research some recent articles dealing with the recent push by U.S. universities to start training foreign students abroad. Based on what you have read, what would you conclude in terms of the advantages and disadvantages of launching these overseas projects? If you were an HR manager of a multinational firm, would you see this as a positive, negative, or neutral trend? Explain.