Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/438743
44 BizEd JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2015 The reasons for the popularity of these arrangements are manifold. For the business school, these partnerships create new business opportunities, identify new students, enhance region- al and global expertise, and build the brand. For students, deep-immersion programs provide an edge when they're searching for jobs in an increasingly interconnected world. In fact, students who don't have experience operating in locales such as Brazil, China, Colombia, and Kenya could lose job opportunities to their better-traveled peers. But while the right global partnership can be a model of elegance, the wrong one can be clumsy and uncertain. A school that chooses the wrong partner will have to deal with a diminished reputation, unhap- py students, procedural nightmares, and a long night on the dance floor. CHOOSING A DANCE STYLE Two main types of international partner- ships exist. The first can be called a hand- off, since one school simply delivers its students to another one. Each institution runs its program as it ordinarily would without adjusting staffing, curriculum, or teaching style. The second option, full integration, requires both schools to be much more deeply involved in coordinat- ing and delivering classes. Full integration is the model we use at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. We partner with Spain's ESADE Business School and Georgetown's School of Foreign Service for our global executive MBA (GEMBA) program. We also partner with both the Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration of the Fundação Getu- lio Vargas (EBAPE/FGV) and ESADE for a corporate international master's program. In the GEMBA arrangement, six 12- day modules take place in Spain, Brazil, the U.S., China, and India. Each module involves professors from each school who have worked together to prepare the curriculum for the class of about 35 students. The academic directors of both schools interview all the applicants, so there is true alignment. The George- town-ESADE-EBAPE/FGV partnership is similarly integrated, with modules in Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, and Washington, D.C. The partners also offer online tutorials that students at all par- ticipating schools can access. The integrated approach requires extra time, staffing, and coordination, which means our academic, admissions, program management, marketing, and finance teams must meet in person and virtually to plan and deliver the pro- grams. However, we believe the benefits far outweigh the costs—as long as the institution has paired up with suitable collaborators. FINDING THE RIGHT PARTNER Many prestigious business schools already run successful partnerships. Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management is allied with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School for a global EMBA that offers on-site studies in Hong Kong, the U.S., Israel, Germany, and Canada. Columbia's Graduate School of Business runs a program with London Business School in which students alternate between New York and London and can perform field study in Asia. UCLA's Anderson School of Management and the National University of Singapore together offer a curriculum that focuses on the Asian business environment. However, there are stories about fail- ures as well as successes. If the parties don't move to the same rhythms—for example, if they don't share educational philosophies and similar definitions of academic rigor—the dancers can trip and fall. We believe alliances will be more successful when the partners look for these key characteristics: Programmatic excellence. Business schools must ally only with institutions of similar quality and with similar aspi- rations and values. This usually means each potential partner must closely review the other institution's academic programming. While the schools may have different ideas about what consti- tutes a detailed syllabus or appropriate classroom behavior, well-matched partners can solve these issues through dialogue among academic directors. At the same time, business schools can benefit by finding partners that have strengths and weaknesses different from their own. For instance, Georgetown and ESADE initially paired up because they had similar Jesuit roots, international orientations, and experiential learning approaches. But each party brought dif- ferent capabilities to the table. George- town took the lead in curriculum design and delivery, while ESADE directed program management and marketing. Over the course of our six-year alli- ance, Georgetown has learned a great deal from our partner. We've progressed tremendously in marketing and business development; we've also learned how to make effective use of social media and how to engage alumni in marketing. In addition, we've learned from ESADE's approach to student services. Tradition- al MBAs usually are students first, but EMBA participants often are spouses first, businesspeople second, and stu- dents third. Georgetown has significantly upgraded its capabilities by watching how ESADE treats EMBAs more as ex- ecutives than as students—for instance, by providing regular meals, offering con- venient wireless service, and facilitating availability of course materials. An open dance card. No one wants to dance with the wallflower, but it may be even worse to try to cut in on the belle of the ball. A business school in China that doesn't have international partners is often solitary for a reason, but it could make for a better pairing than a school that has extended itself too much. At the same time, it's best to start with a slow dance. Before embarking on a large-scale project with a new partner, a school first should try small, customized programs. This will provide insight into