Business Students in a virtual environment (from the Financial Times)

Global learning is defined as the “process of diverse people collaboratively analyzing and addressing complex problems that transcend borders” (Landorf & Doscher, 2015, p. 24), and increasingly underpins the internationalisation of curricula in higher education. Killick (2015) describes students emerging from global learning programs as better equipped to deal with the social, economic and political turmoil of the globalised world, and more responsible global citizens.

Since the 1990’s, global learning has been one of the mainstays of MBA programs; immersing senior business executives in the challenges of developing nations and dealing with global ‘wicked’ problems such as environmental sustainability (Mercer, 1996). Traditionally these programs were expensive to run and hard to scale up beyond a select few participants, as the best programs required students to be immersed in project-based learning in a variety of global locations. Also, students generally had to conform to a synchronous timetable of activities and assessments.

In practical terms, the new digital ecologies have significantly enhanced the global learning in executive MBA programs and made them more cost-effective and scalable. Firstly, the e-learning platforms underpinning these global learning programs allow students (who are often busy executives) to complete work in their own timeframes:

"The design of the program also meant that I could break my study into five blocks of two to three weeks. Being able to create dedicated time for these short periods meant that I could maximise my learning and study workload, while being light touch throughout the three to four months between each module." (Terence Koo, Executive MBA class of 2017, University of Sydney Business School).

However, even beyond the time and place constraints, the new digital ecology assists in providing a personalised, flexible learning journey for individual students. For example, in a recent Australian MBA program, a student created her own medical technology start-up for her final project, whereas another student wrote a new strategic plan for a large financial services firm in Hong Kong (The University of Sydney Business School).

This degree of personalisation still comes at a cost though, since the very ‘high touch’ overseas study modules are expensive to set up and operate. Increasingly the new digital learning is enabling better solutions in this executive education space. The use of customised web-portals, webcam classes and video conferencing enable better multinational teaching, highly interactive lectures, and group project collaboration (Son, 2019). Soon, the use of sophisticated VR (virtual reality) tools may mean that visits abroad may become a thing of the past. Students are more likely to ‘experience’ and solve complex business problems in a virtual environment, instead of travelling abroad (Wylie, 2018).

In summary, the new digital learning is enhancing executive education in numerous and exciting ways. Specifically, it is making executive learning more cost-effective and scalable. which in turn opens up global learning and participation in global citizenry to a much wider audience.

Landorf, H. & Doscher, S.P. (2015). Defining global learning at Florida International University. Diversity and Democracy 18 (3), 24-25.

Mercer, G. I. (1996). The global citizenship MBA orientation program: Action learning at the University of Michigan business school. Journal of Business Ethics, 15, 111-120.

Son, B. K. (2019). Integrated e-Learning paradigm in the Twenty-First century: Management education. In Learning Technologies for Transforming Large-Scale Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (pp. 35-51). Springer, Cham, Switzerland.

The University of Sydney Business School (2019). The global executive MBA, Retrieved from: https://sydney.edu.au/business/study/mba/global-executive-mba.html

Wylie, I. (2018). Virtual reality prepares business students for digital leadership. The Financial Times (online MBA). Retrieved from: https://www.ft.com/content/da636018-02bc-11e8-9e12-af73e8db3c71