Opening a satellite campus for a university can be costly once local laws, rental costs, and protocol are considered, warns Boston University's Director of International Management Programs Jay Kim. Delivering professors to a corporate learning center, on the other hand, keeps overhead low and creates the potential to drive revenues high. Consolini is also head of international business development for the EMBA Council, an organization for educational institutions offering or involved with executive MBA programs. She notes that the same obstacles B-schools now face in Asia caused them to partner with universities throughout Europe. They thought they knew international business, but they didn't.
Globalization is the American standard.
Michigan's Graham Mercer, director of the school's Global Learning Center, adds that he doesn't think customized MBA programs to single companies are the end-all for Asia. Running an in-house MBA program isn't cheap for companies. For at least some of Buffalo's faculty, it'll be a return to China. In 1998, the school reestablished an MBA program it started there in 1984 but had to terminate after the Tiannamen Square protest in 1991. And since 1996, Buffalo has run a part-time EMBA program with the Singapore Institute of Management, making the New York State school one of the pioneers in the Asian market for business education.