| Past research indicates that administrators and faculty agree that information about international business culture should be included in college courses and that significant progress has been made toward this goal. However, this same research also indicates that much debate continues regarding how best to do so. This case study attempted to determine if the opinions, attitudes, and beliefs of faculty members play a part in the ongoing debate about inclusion of international business culture in college courses. A survey was conducted among the faculty members of the College of Business of a Midwestern state university to try and determine if differences in their opinions, attitudes, and beliefs about how best to teach about international business culture exist based upon their age, gender, cultural heritage, length of teaching experience, subject(s) taught, or previous exposure to international culture. The survey results indicated that while there were significant differences with respect to a few of the topics in the survey, overall it cannot be said that there are significant differences in the attitudes, opinions, and beliefs of faculty members regarding the inclusion of international business culture based on any of the independent variables tested. However, this research did discover some overall trends that bear further investigation. Results indicated that while international business culture is currently included in courses, this does not happen with much frequency. Faculty members strongly agree that the best methods for learning about international business culture include travel to a foreign country, yet very few now use these types of methods. In addition, faculty members do not seem to use resources that may be readily available to them nor do they display a willingness to learn about international business culture themselves. Further research is needed to try to determine the root cause of these problems so that the internationalization effort can move forward. |
