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Developing Schools in Developing Nations BY BIJAN FAZLOLLAHI I 've been interested in bringing business education to develop- ing economies since I first visited Azerbaijan in1992. During the 1990s and 2000s, I spearheaded ini- tiatives developed by Georgia State University's Robinson College of Business to launch degree-granting business programs at three universi- ties in two countries: Khazar Uni- versity and the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy in Baku, Azerbaijan; and Caucasus University in Tbilisi, Geor- gia. (See "The Dimensions of Peace," BizEd, May/June 2006, page 24.) Within the past few years, with the strong support of dean Fenwick Huss, the school has added three more collaborations: Azerbaijan University in Baku, and Alexandria University and Cairo University in Egypt. With each new school we've had to learn new cultures, new customs, new students, and new bureaucratic regulations. But even though the institutions them- selves have been very different, the objectives have been the same: to help the schools develop capacity in their business programs so that they would become academically and financially sustainable. The role of GSU/RCB has been to pro- vide technical advice and training that would develop the faculty, the administration, and the curriculum at the partner school. Much to Learn Launching a business school in a developing nation is a significantly different enterprise from develop- ing a curriculum at a Westernized school, and we have learned some crucial lessons over the years. The most critical lesson is that we must teach classroom content that is tailored to the unique level of economic development found in each country. For instance, both Azerbaijan and Georgia were part of the former USSR, but they're not only different from the U.S., they're different from each other. While they're both small countries, Azer- baijan is more focused on the oil industry, and that's where we assume most students will end up working; it also features many related large conglomerates. On the other hand, Georgia supports small and medium- sized businesses; it fosters many entrepreneurs and offers a friend- lier climate for doing business. It's essential that professors teaching classes in these countries use cases that reflect issues that are important to the local economies. A marketing pro- fessor from Georgia, who has also taught in Atlanta, has deter- mined that his stu- dents become more engaged when he pre- 40 November/December 2012 BizEd sents cases featuring well-established brands, because students are familiar with the companies and consider their issues relevant to the realities of Georgia. American faculty teach- ing Georgian students about inter- national business have used a case about Chilean companies entering emerging markets. They adapt the case to feature Georgian companies, which allows the students to visual- ize how exports from their country might fare in growing markets. By contrast, when business professors are teaching in Egypt, they must always be aware of the fact that the society is highly Islamic. They must be cognizant of cultural taboos when conducting classroom discussions, they must understand how the culture and the media differ from their West- ern counterparts. For instance, Egyptians gener- ally have a lower level of risk toler- ance than Americans. Therefore, a course on portfolio management would cover risk in a different fashion than it would be covered in a U.S. classroom. The class would also take into account the degree to which wealthy Egyptian investors feel constrained by the realities of Islamic finance. In both Egypt and Georgia, mar- keting classes must be substantially different than they are in America. For instance, most U.S. classes on marketing assume that advertising affects consumer behavior. But in these countries, word of mouth is more influential, so advertising is not emphasized as much. When teaching any of these courses, American professors