International Business Teaching

Throughout the past two decades, swift and accelerated changes in global competition coupled with corporate leaders'needs for globally conversant managers have placed far-reaching demands on U.S. business schools to alter their curricula to provide a competent level of international business literacy. International Business Teaching assesses the efficacy of international business teaching within undergraduate business curricula through the use of a multidimensional scaling methodology. This assessment uncovers the hidden cognitive structure behind undergraduate students'comprehension of the international business lexicon and shows international business educators potential shortcomings of their curricula.Authors in International Business Teaching measure sophomore and senior undergraduate business students'abilities to assimilate knowledge and concepts related to the international business lexicon consisting of the Structural Global Dimension (encompasses business transactions involving two or more socio-political factors and the environments which affect such transactions) and the Functional Dimension (focuses upon organizing and managing business operations and transactions by comparing specific business functions). Results suggest that senior students understand the Functional Dimensions of international business better than Structural Global Dimensions and indicate a need for more emphasis on global understanding within international business programs.Research in International Business Teaching was conducted in response to the increased level of global economic, political, and social interdependencies and, thus, the need for students to gain a better understanding of the complexities of a global economy. The international perspective in business teaching and research, more than ever before, is an indispensable requirement for excellence and relevance in business education. For the student, the international perspective advances an understanding of why local business practices are what they are and how they change over time. Students need global understanding to compete in the workforce as employers are questioning the value new recruits add to their organizations and as various industry leaders appeal to American business schools to train students with the requisite skills appropriate for doing business in a global marketplace. The challenge to U.S. business educators to graduate globally conversant and competent managers is a pressing issue. To ignore this challenge could prove perilous to U.S. global standing and competitiveness.