Today Business School students gain global experience, in this case a trip to Brazil to learn about rural development.
History of International and Internationally Focused Programs
Today the Stanford Graduate School of Business global focus is represented by the Center for Global Business and the Environment, the Global Management Program for MBA and Sloan students, the Global Management Immersion Experience linking MBA students with summer internships around the world; ongoing joint academic programs with MBA students from China's Tsing-Hua University in Bejing and with the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore.
All MBA students are required to take part in a program to give them significant experience in a part of the world they have not lived or worked in in the past as a requirement for earning their degree.
Center for Global Management
and The Environment
Founded in 2004, the Center aims to be the leader in developing and disseminating curriculum materials, research, and conceptual frameworks on global issues.
It encourages partnerships between the School and global managers and support rigorous and relevant research, teaching, and course development resources. The Global Center provides a focus for investigating the inherent complexity of international business: running operations across dispersed geographies, in a variety of cultures simultaneously, and under different legal, economic and political institutions.
Global Management Program
Established in 1994, the GMP offers academic and immersive learning opportunities for students who wish to develop the capacities and mindset needed to be effective in a global environment.
The Program offers a certificate in global management in addition to the MBA degree for students who complete a specific number of course requirements for courses with global focus.
Student International Experience
Business School students have been making formal study trips to other countris since at least 1987. Each trip involves campus speakeres and programs in advance of the trip to learn about the country. Each trip includes at least one faculty and sometimes staff members.
Student-initiated international study trips complement the classroom experience by offering students the opportunity to interact with global leaders from around the world. Students develop a perspective on the business, political, and social climates within the countries visited, as well as an understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing businesses in that region.
In addition, students may apply for summer internships as part of the Global Management Immersion Experience program.
Global Outreach in Earlier Decades
By the early 60s the Stanford Graduate School of Business had evolved into an internationally-respected business school with a greater focus on global issues. Some major events that led to this transition include the establishment of ICAME (International Center for the Advancement of Management Education), ESAN (Escuela en Administracion de Negocios) and other international programs.
ESAN
In 1962 the U.S. State Department invited Stanford Graduate School of Business to send faculty to Peru to study its needs and facilities for management education. This project, directed by Gail M. Oxley, led to the establishment of ESAN (Escuela en Administracion de Negocios) The program was the product of a three-way agreement involving the government of Peru, which paid the costs of Peruvian staff and faculty; the US Agency for International Development (AID) which paid the cost of US faculty, library staff and of ESAN graduates doing advanced study in the US; and Stanford which studied the feasibility of starting the school and provided initial organization and study. ESAN created a Stanford-operated graduate school of business, located in Lima, Peru, the first graduate school of business in Peru and the first operating exclusively at the graduate level in South America. Stanford professor Alan B. Coleman was the first dean of ESAN. [Details]
The school was dedicated on March 30, 1963 and classes began in Lima in the spring of 1964. For the first seven years Peruvian faculty gradually replaced American professors until the school was completely run by a full-time Peruvian faculty. In 1970 , Dr.Tulio de Andrea was named the first Peruvian dean of ESAN. By 1972 the last full-time American professor had left the school.
At the first ESAN graduation, Carlos Martijena, a student, discussed what he called "the spirit of ESAN," which has four aspects: "The first is a thoughtful determination to solve problems which you have brought into focus. Second, a clear mind with which to view the problems objectively. Third, a good balance between experience and study, between practice and theory. And finally, honest and determined drive toward economic development. All of these contribute to making us free men.
ICAME
The International Center for the Advancement of Management Education (ICAME) was established at the Graduate School of Business in 1960 under a $3,500,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to offer a flexible program of advanced training for faculty members from business schools in emerging countries and to make available resources to meet the varying needs of the schools. The program as it was originally established provided nine-month fellowships to foreign professors of business with emphasis on a different functional area each year. Its first course of study began June 1963. ICAME was the first school-within-a-school in the world where the students were faculty at foreign institutions.
ESAN Is Dedicated
(This article appeared in Stanford Business magazine in 1964.)
South America's first school of business teaching exclusively at the graduate level was dedicated in Lima, Peru, in evening ceremonies March 30.
Escuela de Administracion de Negocios para Graduados (ESAN) is an Alliance for Progress project operated by the Stanford Graduate School of Business with financial support provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) and the Peruvian government.
Representing Stanford at the opening ceremonies Morris Doyle, president of the Stanford Board of Trustees, Dean Ernest C. Arbuckle of the Graduate School of Business, and ESAN Dean Alan B. Coleman.
ESAN is serving as a graduate school for five cooperating Peruvian universities. Its initial faculty, drawn primarily from Stanford, will be rotated and gradually phased out, placing the school in the hands of a full-time Peruvian faculty in 1969 or 1970. An opening class of 50 students, selected from more than 200 applicants, began regular course work in April within a curriculum patterned after the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Dean Arbuckle was a featured speaker at the dedication ceremonies. He addressed his audience in the Spanish language.
"It has been my experience," he said, "that business schools operating without the interest, support, and participation of the business community can be at best only 50 per cent effective in the development of managerial talent and in improving managerial practice through research. The genuine interest in the school already shown by the Peruvian business community augurs well for the future.
"It has now become recognized that in a very real sense the wealth of a nation and its potential for economic, social, and political growth stem from the ability to develop and effectively to utilize the capacities of its people. Progress is basically the result of human effort, and human resource development is a more realistic and reliable measure of modernization and development than any other.
"By human resource development I mean the process of increasing the skills and the capacities of all the people in a society. In economic terms, it can be described as the accumulation of human capital and its effective investment in the development of the economy. Human resources are developed in many ways, but the most obvious and basic is by education."
He pointed out that a recent study in which countries in different stages of development were analyzed showed a very high correlation between economic development and the levels of educational attainment achieved. In short, the higher the grade levels completed by the most people, the more advanced the country. He emphasized that the school is dedicated to the further development and education of men who have, or aspire to have, management responsibility in business enterprise.
"The future of private enterprise in any country," he said, "is dependent on the quality of its leadership. It is the objective of ESAN, in cooperation with the other universities in Peru, to further enlarge the reservoir of trained managerial talent from which may be drawn this leadership which will be required in the years ahead."
Dean Arbuckle concluded his remarks by observing that Stanford expects to gain much from its Peruvian operation.
"We also anticipate with pleasure the values to Stanford that will accrue from the association," he said. "To study in depth, and to learn more about your culture, your economy, and your society is an opportunity we embrace eagerly and one which will enrich and improve the teaching in our own country in the years ahead. It is only with such knowledge and understanding that we can strengthen the bonds between our two countries and make progress toward the goals of a free society."
While in Lima, Dean Arbuckle met with some 30 Stanford alumni including two graduates of the Business School, George Parker, MBA '62, and William Wraith, MBA'59.