Research Background and Motivation

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background and Motivation 1.1.1 The Background

MBA education has been developed for decades from former business theory-tended to later industry practice-tended. With the trend of globalization in business, MBA education has been improved to meet the demands of the business world. As one of the top schools of management in the world, Kellogg of Northwestern University (2001) stated that a broad and nuanced understanding of the world to succeed is needed in today‟s economy which is driven by increasingly complex and interdependent markets. According to the other top institute of management in the world, MBA program in Harvard Business School (2010), the inherently international experience is emphasized, and an intense period of personal and professional transformation prepares students for challenges in any functional area at anywhere in the world.

Over the last few decades, according to the World Bank, the pace of the global integration has become much faster and dramatic because of unprecedented advancements and

revolutions in technology, communication, transportation and industry. Today's international organizations require global managers who understand and can respond to customers,

governments and competitors alike. Large multinational enterprises are developing

knowledge networks comprised of workers from around the world who collaborate on product or service innovations, growth and structural cost reduction. At the core of the

knowledge-based multinational enterprise is the global manager who has the ability to scan the environment, sense change, understand the firm's capabilities and put measurable and profitable plans in place. All of the above requires a different form of human resource

management and candidate selection. The market is now the world and managers within firms must have the competency to grapple with complex issues and possess the confidence to carry

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out global initiatives (Stanek, 2000).

Given the relationship between management education and the business world, market forces such as globalization, technological change, and new workplace requirements may affect business education more than any other branch of academia (Friga, Bettis et al., 2003).

Therefore, MBA education also needs to meet the change of globalization especially for those who prepare to be the management roles in the future. The Master of Business Administration, MBA, is a master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines. Originated in the United States, MBA emerged from the late 19^th century as the country industrialized and companies sought out scientific approaches to management (Baruch and Leeming, 2001). The core courses in the MBA program are designed to introduce students to various disciplines of business and management such as accounting, marketing, human resources, operations management, etc. The goals of MBA programs are to prepare their graduates for managerial roles; to help them gain a better understanding of the industrial and business world and its needs, to enrich their skills and to provide them with competencies and capabilities relevant to their careers (Baruch and Leeming, 2001). Therefore, holding a MBA degree is usually perceived as a passport into managerial roles.

In Taiwan, MBA attracts people from different undergraduate majors and the acceptance rate is low. The acceptance rate of MBA programs in 2007 were under 10% based on the report of Common Wealth Magazine (Wang, 2007). Moreover, the acceptance rate of departments/institutes of Business Administration and Business and Management in 2008 were under 4% in average.

Starting from 2005, Ministry of Education (MOE) encourages national universities to establish and assess professional business and management schools. The aims are to meet the demand of the development of professional business and management education domestically in the future; to improve professional capacity, expertise identification, professional ethics

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and the ability of self-control of students with practical training; to combine the internship and practical teaching; and to improve the identification of professional knowledge and study experience internationally for the connection with the world. These programs, called Global MBA (GMBA) or international MBA (IMBA), offer the degree of Master of Business Administration. These programs focus on developing the global points of view for students and enforcing not only professional knowledge with intern systems and empirical study but also the international-qualified abilities to increasing the competitiveness in the global business. Through these programs, MOE not only expects to attract international students studying in Taiwan but also expects to develop students‟ ability to foreign language and global viewpoints. Compared with traditional MBA program, GMBA/IMBA could offer students a cross-cultural environment with international students worldwide and offers a fully accredited Masters of Business Administration degree teaching completely in English.

Comparing with traditional MBA program in Taiwan, half of the GMBA/IMBA students and faculty are local Taiwan citizens and the other half are from diverse nationalities, representing a diverse mixture of people. Besides, unlike traditional MBA program in Taiwan, the

admission requirement includes at least two or three years of working experiences, which makes GMBA/IMBA program much more practical because students can share their working experiences in class and combine what they learn with what they did. To sum up,

GMBA/IMBA adds different values against Taiwan‟s traditional MBA programs.

1.1.2 Statement of The Problem and The Research Motivation

Because of the globalization of businesses, the demand of global managers is increasing. And MBA education should meet the demand of this trend as well. As Friga, Bettis et al. (2003) mentioned, business education must be affected by the trend of globalization. Ball and McCulloh (1993) did the survey from the CEOs of the largest American multinational firms studying the importance of international business education for their employees and the international business courses they wanted the employees they hired to have studied. In

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Long‟s (2009) study, the gap between MBA education and business demands was explored.

However, the demands of global managers were not included in her study. In Mellahi‟s (2000) study, the teaching of leadership was focused on UK MBA programs even though it was from an international perspective. Cabrera and Bowen (2005) discussed the professional

management education which MBA education provided for the global management should be revised to have a true professional discipline considered by practitioners, educators, regulators and society. Khurana et al. (2005) discussed the profession of business management in

America and the professional obligations of individuals.

In Taiwan, MOE has established a new MBA program with international students and whole English courses for meeting the internationalization of MBA education. This program, called GMBA/IMBA, has differences from traditional MBA education in Taiwan especially with cross-cultural environment; would GMBA/IMBA students have additional competence against the students of traditional MBA? Cant (2004) gave the advice for internationalizing the business curriculum, but it was focused on undergraduate students. Eileen (2005) did the research about cross-cultural competencies for U.S. business leaders, but it was only focused on business not education.

The motivation of this research is to probe whether GMBA/IMBA programs in Taiwan can make students more competitive on diverse cultural adjustment and whether MBA students, comparing to other business majors, in Taiwan can meet the demands of global business as the global managers.

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