Internationalization of N. American MBA Programs: An Analysis of the MBA Study Tour as a Tourism Product

초록

This paper ponders the MBA study tour through a tourism lens, which leads one to see these hands-on out of the classroom learning opportunities as a niche segment of educational travel, belonging to the broader category of youth tourism. Utilizing interviews conducted with 16 administrators of MBA programs from four countries, this paper investigates the current trend of internationalization of Western and Asian MBA programs and why graduate business schools are increasingly offering short duration international study tours. Key factors include the immense influx of international students into MBA programs, the diversification of faculty, hyper-competition among MBA programs, growing popularity of substitute programs, the increased power of yearly MBA rankings, student desire for more international focused programs and the commodification of MBA programs.