|
Reforming Fletcher's International Business Program By Jean Schéré, (MA '95) Fletcher is first and foremost a school of international affairs and it is within this domain that its comparative advantage lies. Fletcher is and has always been wonderfully poised to cover issues that business schools often either fail to address or, when they do, cover in a peripheral manner because of the functional specialization of their faculties. Some 20 years ago, the Wharton school, my alma mater, under the leadership of Russ Ackoff and Hasan Ozbekhan, did try to look at the whole picture through the foundation of a department of Social Systems Sciences. However, after the departure of Ackoff and the retirement of Ozbekhan, the department folded. Truth be told, this attempt at taking the systemic view was not entirely well received by the rest of the faculty on account of the interdisciplinary approach adopted by this school of thought. Nevertheless, at least it had the merit of trying to approximate, in an academic environment, the "real-world" challenges facing senior decision-makers in both the public and private sector. I am convinced that the Fletcher School, with all its assets and experience, would be best poised to fill up the gap left open by the disappearance of this Wharton department and the absence of any known successor in the MBA marketplace. Fletcher is sui generis a systems school: it focuses on areas of scholarship that lend themselves to a systemic approach because of their systemic consequences. Popular Fletcher areas of study, such as trade, international law, international finance, economic development, international communications, international business, and strategic studies are all, in some manner, systemic in their issues and concerns. Fletcher is also a school of organizations since it aims to prepare its students to work for international agencies, governments, NGOs and corporations. If one agrees with this analysis, it follows logically that there should be new courses added to the existing Economics and International Business curriculum. I have developed three new courses, albeit sketchily, which would better prepare students irrespective of their background and their particular fields of study.
One course would address the basic concepts of the organization sciences: organization behavior and theories, organizational economics, the systems approach. The goal of this course would be to give Fletcher students the requisite skills to analyze and understand the world of organizations, both public and private. After all, governments and international agencies, just like corporations, are comprised of people with their own goals, needs and idiosyncrasies which cannot simply be "reified" to fit some neatly defined academic theories. Buchanan's School of Public Choice has clearly demonstrated that the world cannot be divided between the "good" public organizations and the "greedy" private corporations. To study the WTO/OMC or the World Bank only in terms of their missions without taking into account the "human side" of the organization will lead many students to bitter disappointment once they land a plum job without the sacred halls of one of these prestigious international institutions! Like Molière's M. Jourdain, who spoke in prose without knowing it, Fletcher addresses systemic/global and organizational issues without really knowing it. For this reason, such a course is a necessary addition to the EIB curriculum. A second course would focus on culture and ethics: the values, mores and societal expectations of the people that are the basis of any purposeful social system. Systems do not exist or evolve in a vacuum, but are by essence "purposeful." That is, they exist to serve a set of values and needs that are shared by groupings of peoples or/and nations. Failure to make explicit the values and expectations of the participants to any system will more often than not lead to that system's demise. Consequently, it is mandatory to study value systems in order to build systems that will not only survive but prosper for the benefit of all. A course in international and comparative business values and practices would undoubtedly help Fletcher students in identifying those cultural and ethical elements which are germane to any successful system-building. Finally, a third course could be added in the form of a seminar. It would build upon all the International Business courses taught at Fletcher and aim at teaching the participants how to think globally and strategically through simulation exercises similar to Professor Pfaltzgraff's SIMULEX. Without altering in any fundamental fashion the mission of The Fletcher School, these changes to the EIB curriculum would not only strengthen the International Business track, but also would undoubtedly strengthen the overall curriculum of Fletcher since they would provide students with an additional conceptual apparatus to understand more comprehensively the world of international affairs. Having said that, we can now ask the following question: should the Fletcher School go beyond this updating of its EIB curriculum? In other words, should it offer a separate M.A. in International Business? Should such a degree be reserved for mid-career students? Should we resurrect and expand the global management seminar into a full-fledged degree program? And if so, should it be done in partnership with top international business schools to increase the supply of course offerings and the number of sites in order to attract "working" participants worldwide while keeping down both the set-up and operating costs of such a global executive international affairs program? It seems to me that a resounding yes should be given to all the aforementioned queries. Fletcher should leverage both its upgraded and updated EIB program to fill in an academic market niche that has been, for the most part, overlooked by all the great business schools both in Europe and the U.S. I am referring specifically to the near-absence of global management programs for people in the 32-45 age bracket, especially those with a business background for whom the traditional MBA program would be, on the whole, a waste of time. These students are too old for a two-year MBA program and too young for the traditional executive MBA programs (Chicago, Duke and Wharton generally require 15 years work experience). Additionally, for most of these students, two years away from their employment is too long. Furthermore, these executive programs do not offer the kind of international or global perspective that is the hallmark of the Fletcher education. Given these considerations, I propose that Fletcher should offer a mid-career M.A. degree in International Business both in the U.S. and abroad.
Mr. Schéré holds an MBA and a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Management from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Comments? Write us at letter@fletcherledger.com |
