In agreements with universities in China and Austria, the Carlson School of Management expanded its international program scope earlier this month.
The two new programs will be modeled after the Carlson school’s current relationship with the Warsaw School of Economics in Poland.
In 1993, the Carlson school began working with the Warsaw school to develop an executive MBA program, a degree catering to middle- and upper-level managers seeking to advance their education while also continuing their careers.
The now fully operational partnership works like an exchange program. Carlson school professors and their Eastern European counterparts travel and work between the two universities and within the two MBA programs.
Since the partnership began six years ago, 60 Warsaw professors have traveled to the University for training. Carlson school professors currently travel in pairs and work in Warsaw for 14-month stints.
The University’s partnership with the Lingnan College in China and the Vienna University of Business and Economics in Austria will follow a similar design.
For its investment of time and energy, the Carlson school gains an outlet for its professors to get international training and case work experience. The foreign universities gain a new executive MBA program and links to a U.S. business school.
“If we’re going to be a top-notch business school we have to be global,” said Mahmood Zaidi, chairman of international programs at the Carlson school. “The production and dissemination of knowledge has to be at the global level.”
By going international, the Carlson school diversifies its teaching material, explained Zaidi. Instead of professors basing their class materials strictly on business situations in the U.S. economy, they can bring back business experiences unique to European and Asian economies by working abroad.
Because the professors and their staff members are in constant collaboration, the experience is more in-depth when compared to the usual exchange programs that scatter professors between dozens of universities for short periods of time.
More involvement also allows the Carlson school to insure that the MBA programs at the foreign schools adhere to their classroom, admissions and graduation standards, insuring that the program, once implemented, is a successful one.
In total, the Carlson school plans for five joint-degree programs. The last two programs, yet to be announced, will be based in Latin America and South Asia.
Schools with roughly similar programs include Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, Rutgers University, the University of Chicago and Purdue University.