Internationalization of MBA Students’ Career and Academic Life: An Integrating Approach Modeling ()
1. Introduction
The students’ main reasons to do an MBA course are related to the possibilities of improving the career, acquiring new skills, obtaining leadership positions, and building professional networks. As a confirmation of these expectations, a poll conducted annually by the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC, 2019), with more than 1,000 MBA applicants, found out some reasons for applying, as strong network access, career-changing, new information, skills and knowledge acquisition, and a desire to make a positive difference in the world. Dhanawade and Bhola (2015), Hay and Hodgkinson (2006) also corroborate those factors in their previous studies, citing, as very important, the acquisition of professional traits linked to new abilities/knowledge, and the new possibilities in terms of career perspectives.
Brazilian MBA Institutions have launched internationalized course versions that enable students to stay abroad for some weeks, during the MBA journey and be back to finish their studies at home school. This short internship in a foreign place would be aligned with students’ expectations and might contribute to their careers.
The literature review reports a considerable amount of research on relevant concepts related to the internationalization of higher education: internationalization of curriculum (Stein, 2021), innovative pedagogic approaches (Jiang, 2022; Xu, 2019; Kenna, 2017; Simm & Marvell, 2017; Rauer, Kroiss, Kryvinska, Engelhardt-Nowitzki, & Aburaia, 2021), critical thinking (Bourn, 2014; Kenna, 2017; Lehtomäki, Moate, & Posti-Ahokas, 2016), cross-cultural competence (Johnson, Lenartowicz, & Apud, 2006), global thinking (Bourn, 2014; Klein, Pawson, Solem, & Ray, 2014; McCormick & Stephen, 2016), global perspective (Hanvey, 1976; Klein et al., 2014) and global citizenship (Clifford & Montgomery, 2014; Nussbaum, 2002). Although the cited papers present those constructs isolated or partially combined, none of them bring an integrating model. There is a lack of studies considering the most critical concepts in a holistic/integrated approach (Knight, 2021). The article with a more comprehensive line of thought is the one developed by McCormick and Stephen (2016), considering graduate business students. Their paper will be taken as the start point for the exploration of the primary constructs of the model we proposed ahead. Moreover, we are going to present some steps further, developing and splitting constructs, suggesting paths designed in an optimized approach, and considering integration of the concepts around this theme.
The central problem in this research is the fragmented vision of the elements related to the MBA student’s career internationalization, which contributes to unsuccessful journeys abroad and to not maximize the efforts to create an internationalization at home process that can influence global skills and mindset needed to have a global career. From this questioning, the main objective of this article is to build and test a research model that integrates the main concepts around the internationalization of MBA student’s career and academic life, identifying the best antecedents for the global skills and mindset needed in a worldwide perspective.
Looking for the achievement of this objective, the paper was structured as follows: first, the theoretical framework; second, the method this research was based; third, the discussion of the structure and relationships among variables, the data analyses, and the depiction of the conceptual model validation, including the main results in the context of the reviewed literature.
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2. Theoretical Framework
The concepts approached in this item are the fundamental pillars of the theoretical support for the hypotheses formulation of the study. The literature points to the following constructs: internationalization at home, experience abroad, global skills and global mindset. It is worth to mention that each of these constructs presented here is a multidimensional concept, formed by connected but different ideas about the studied subjects.
2.1. Internationalization at Home-Personal and Institutional Electing a Template
Internationalization at home is regarded as a multidimensional construct involving interaction with international students, curriculum development, and innovative pedagogic approaches (Harrison, 2015). The interactions local students may have with international colleagues in their educational institutions are opportunities for contacts with other cultures, opening spaces for elaborating the ability to face diversity (Smaoui, 2021; Zhang, Xia, Fan, & Zhu, 2016), and integration among international cohorts (Almeida, Robson, Morosini, & Baranzeli, 2019). Middlehurst (2013) emphasizes the relevance of initiatives aiming to integrate cross-cultural knowledge and broaden diverse pedagogical practices in education. De Wit and Altbach (2021) corroborated by Markovic, Bokonjic and Lepeleer (2021) highlight the importance given and the attention received lately by the literature of internationalization at home, emphasizing this concept as a key component of internationalization of higher education.
The idea of curriculum internationalization is a practical way to prepare the students to concern themselves with global issues (De Wit, 2020) and becomes a reality when international and intercultural aspects are incorporated and integrated into its content (Stein, 2021). This subdimension can supply the students with content to understand the international dynamic of specific academic areas. The constituents of the internationalization of curriculum could be global perspectives, intercultural dialogue, and responsible citizenship in social terms.
Information and communication technologies (ICT) is an essential pillar in Internationalization at Home as long as it permits a whole planet real-time contact and supplies necessary didactic tools to turn viable fundamental pedagogic activities (Mittelmeier, Rienties, Gunter, & Raghuram, 2021). Simm and Marvell (2017) highlight those technological resources such as collaborative curriculum development, international field courses, and distance learning, must be brought to education, aiming to develop global students. Nevertheless, these authors recommend caution with teaching focused on content because there is a risk that the student’s needs might become a second-rate concern.
In short, as depicted in Table 1, Internationalization at Home has three basic indicators that can be unfolded in two main emphases: Personal and Institutional. On the one hand, the interrelations the alumni might maintain with other students, professors, and faculties are focused on the Personal subdimension of the construct. On the other hand, the internationalization of curriculum (the course content organized in a particular structure) and innovative pedagogic approaches (comprehending the teaching instruments including state of the art educational technologies) are related to the initiatives the educational institution would conduct to provide global learning at home. The expectations are that the Institutional subdimension, which encompasses all the pedagogical apparatus in terms of curriculum content and teaching tools, is the one with the power to motivate the students in developing personal interactions with faculty and colleagues in a global sense. This way, the first proposed hypothesis is the following:
H1: The Internationalization at Home-Institutional influences positively the Internationalization at Home-Personal.
2.2. Experience Abroad
As confirmed by Simm and Marvell (2017), the outbound mobility of students and faculty is widely known as an obvious way of internationalizing the curriculum. Those trips are regarded as relevant experience in intercultural and personal terms (Aguiar Pereira, Heinzle, & Pinto, 2017; Gu, 2009; Loynes & Gurholt, 2017), although they might bring some nuisance to the traveler. In his work, Gu (2009) spotted different kinds of shocks: cultural, educational, language, and role-playing, resulting from problems faced by students when dealing with a foreign academic environment. However, the pain can be worthy as long as the acquired intercultural experience might transform student life. The crossing of cultural boundaries might reward a new learning experience with the power to generate an imbalance in the established knowledge (Loynes & Gurholt, 2017).
No matter the reason, having an experience abroad by itself is already considered a relevant personal learning experience in a broader sense (Grabowski, Wearing, Lyons, Tarrant, & Landon, 2017; Inkson & Myers, 2003; Stone & Petrick, 2013; Blackburn & Wise, 2013). Even in trips fully dedicated to academic purpose, “out-of-class experiences were the most impactful portion of study abroad” (Gallarza, Seric, & Cuadrado, 2017; Stone & Petrick, 2013: 731). This way, the construct Experience Abroad has two leading indicators: 1) the specific academic experience a student might have in a foreign higher educational institution, and 2) the personal experience lived in the academic journey or in another kind of trip taken by the student, like short trips to participate in congresses/seminars/meetings or even touristic journeys (Table 1).
In short, the student who has the opportunity of studying or experimenting some time abroad is more prone to engage in the international learning process after coming back home. Having this in mind, a second hypothesis is proposed:
H2: The Experience Abroad obtained by the students influences positively the Internationalization at Home-Personal.
2.3. Global Skill
Global skills, understood as the ability to think critically, in an independent way, have been a relevant requisite for all the participants of the academy: alumni, professors, and principal or deans (Kenna, 2017). It is a capacity connected to Popper’s falsifiability concept, which proposes that any truth should only be accepted while there is no proof to the contrary. That is a way of thinking independently from previous establishments like dogmas or doctrines. The competences needed in a globalized world are connected to the interpretation of a person own values and attitudes, a critical reflection about information and knowledge, the ability to analyze situations in different perspectives, and the interconnection of local and global issues (Bourn, 2014; Lehtomäki et al., 2016).
The capacity to deal with a diversified cultural environment, known as a cross-cultural ability in the literature, is also a fundamental facet of global skills. Business students at the graduate level are expected to connect with different cultural questions and perspectives through interaction with both alumni, professors, and faculty in general (White & Griffith, 1998). According to Johnson et al. (2006), the concept of cross-cultural competence is linked to the learner’s ability to develop knowledge and skills as much as personal attributes to face people from the most diverse cultural background successfully.
Another relevant indicative of global skills is the concept of thinking globally, which is associated with the competence to interact with the diversity of a worldwide business environment, including all the complexity and interconnections that characterize international businesses’ rationale (Tyran, 2017). The primary outcome from the concept of thinking globally is related to the comprehension of diverse international conditions as much as using this knowledge as a base to make decisions and choose appropriate courses of action (Klein et al., 2014). There is an increasing demand for business schools to develop well-prepared professionals with enough confidence to manage business anywhere in the world (McCormick & Stephen, 2016).
Also, an essential indicator of Global Skills is the capacity to challenge established knowledge, defy settled beliefs, and confront old assumptions. Usually, it is necessary a considerable amount of energy to deal with change. The status quo is customarily defended by those who built it. Authors such as Clifford and Montgomery (2014), and Simm and Marvell (2017) highlight the relevance of challenging traditional viewpoints, defying settled perspectives with the aid of different manners of thinking.
In short, as shown in Table 1, Global Skills are an important outcome from an MBA course comprehending an ability to think critically and globally, a competence to deal with people from different cultural backgrounds, and a faculty to defy established beliefs and assumptions. And the building of this outcome is expected to be originated from the experiences provided by the time spent in the MBA course at home in its personal or institutional subdimensions (Internationalization at Home-Personal/Institutional) and/or also abroad (Experience Abroad) in academic or personal journeys. Taking this rationale into account, three more hypotheses are suggested:
H3: The Internationalization at Home-Personal influences positively the construction of her/his skills (Global Skills).
H4: The Internationalization at Home-Institutional influences positively the construction of her/his skills (Global Skills).
H5: Experience Abroad during an MBA course influences positively her/his skills (Global Skills).
As confirmed by Simm and Marvell (2017), the outbound mobility of students and faculty is widely known as an obvious way of internationalizing the curriculum. Those trips are regarded as relevant experience in intercultural and personal terms (Aguiar Pereira, Heinzle, & Pinto, 2017; Gu, 2009; Loynes & Gurholt, 2017), alt.
2.4. Global Mindset
The concept of global mindset is connected to how someone perceives herself/himself in the academic, professional, or human context of the world. It is linked to the way people think and does as much as their interactions within the world around. Foster and Carver (2018: 144) argues that “… every student should think of themselves as an international student”. Hanvey (1976) was one of the first authors in education to be concerned with the idea of global conscience. For Hanvey (1976), the idea of teaching taking into consideration a global perspective was connected to perspective consciousness (how the world is viewed), state of the planet (how the world is developed), cross-cultural awareness, knowledge of global dynamics and awareness of human choices. The concept of global perspective proposed by Hanvey considers the concepts of global skills (preparedness to work in an international environment) and also global mindset (someone’s conscience in the context of the world).
In their duty to prepare global citizens for an uncertain future in an interconnected world, institutions of higher education face the challenges emanating from the changing necessities of people, employers, and communities (Lehtomäki et al., 2016) with consequences to disciplines, subject contents, and contexts. Therefore, the global connectedness concept is associated with the learning of the self and the others, a reexamination of assumptions, and a reevaluation of familiar points of view (Lehtomäki et al., 2016). Global mindset is also associated with the idea of global citizenship, an awareness of the self in the context of the world as a whole. Nussbaum (2002) provides a frequently mentioned definition of global citizenship (Clifford & Montgomery, 2014), which is composed by the following dimensions: 1) ability to criticize the tradition someone is familiar with; 2) faculty of thinking as a world’s citizen and 3), and capacity of seeing the world in the perspective of others. Consequently, global citizenship is connected to the idea that any local citizen would be able to reconsider his/her own condition and incorporate a global perspective.
Also linked with global mindset is the idea of global dimension (Bourn, 2014), a concept emphasizing the diffusion of learning in an interdependent world, drawing on the similarities of people rather than differences, and embedding a faith in a better and sustainable world. Global mindset can also be considered linked to the concept of world-mindedness, which is focused on the interrelationship of the person in the world. World-mindedness was the research focus of Sampson and Smith (1957, apud Béneker, Tani, Uphues, & Vaart, 2013), which psychometric scale developed in the 1950s and updated by Béneker et al. (2013) was based in eight dimensions: immigration, religion, economics, government, race, patriotism, war, and education.
Accordingly, as presented in Table 1, Global Mindset is also considered an outcome construct, resulting from the experience lived in an MBA course, centered in the idea of a global conscience a person develops about herself/himself as a student, professional, citizen, or human being. There is an assumption that this consequent concept is influenced by international learning acquired in the MBA Course at the local educational institution in its personal or institutional subdimensions (Internationalization at Home-Personal/Institutional) and/or through an experience in a foreign country, no matter if academic, professional or personal (Experience Abroad). Having those arguments in mind, the following three hypotheses are proposed:
H6: The Internationalization at Home-Personal influences positively the development of her/his Global Mindset.
H7: The Internationalization at Home-Institutional influences positively the development of her/his Global Mindset.
H8: The Experience Abroad during an MBA course influences positively the development of her/his Global Mindset.
At last, this paper also hypothesizes that the more global skills a student develops, translated into competences and abilities necessary to manage international business, the more prone to conceive a global mindset concerning herself/
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Table 1. Internationalization at Home: construct and indicators.
Source: Authors.
himself in a worldwide context. Therefore, the next hypothesis is proposed:
H9: The more Global Skills the student acquires, the more susceptible she/he is to develop a Global Mindset.
Lobal skills, understood as the ability to think critically, in an independent way, has been a relevant requisite for all the participants of the academy: alumni, professors, and principal
3. Methodology
3.1. Sample
The target population for this work consisted of graduated or in progress Brazilian MBA students. Primary data were collected by an electronic questionnaire published at Google Forms interface (86% of answers), or a paper questionnaire applied directly to MBA students in progress (14%) at one of the Brazilian Business Schools, based on a list of prior contacts composed of 3 sources: LinkedIn researchers’ network, ex-MBA students mailing, and snowball referrals from these two sources.
The sample consisted of 123 valid cases that are pre-analyzed. Considering the non-filtered blocks of questions-Internationalization at Home Personal (IHP), Internationalization at Home Institutional (IHI), Global Skills (GS), and Global Mindset (GM)—there are no missing data, and there is a unique case that did not answer the qualifying questions. Due to the questionnaire nominal and Likert structures, the few extreme values are indicative of the characteristics of the population. So, we kept unchanged all 123 cases previously informed.
According to the WarpPLS option named “Explore statistical power and minimum sample size requirements”, there are two methods of estimating minimum required sample sizes—the inverse square root and gamma-exponential methods (Kock & Hadaya, 2018). The first tends to slightly overestimate the minimum required sample size while the second provides a more precise estimate. Those authors also suggested users to be prudent, showing both results and considering the more conservative option for the same statistical power and significance level.
Alternative methods for sample estimation have been used for a long time, like the 10-times rule method (Goodhue, Lewis, & Thompson, 2012; Hair, Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2011), most widely observed in PLS-SEM papers. A variation of this method is the minimum R-squared method that was proposed by Hair, Hult, Ringle and Sarstedt (2017: 25). Considering the “10-times rule” method, the minimum sample for this study should be 40 cases, as the maximum number of inner or outer links are 4. If we consider the R-squared method, the sample should be at least 58 cases, reflecting the four-maximum links, 0.25 for the minimum desirable R2 and significance level (0.01).
So, this study’s data is fully enough to generate fairly precise and safe estimates, with normal and non-normal data.
3.2. Instrument
This research is a cross-sectional study, whose data were collected in 2020. The questionnaire was divided into four parts. The first one checks if the respondents declare they are an in-progress or former MBA student. If not, they cannot go ahead. The second part refers to the standard part of the research model—Internationalization at Home Personal (IHP), Internationalization at Home Institutional (IHI), Global Skills (GS), and Global Mindset (GM) constructs. The third part is another filter that drives about the Experience Abroad in two levels—Personal, that refers to experiences obtained from travels abroad to participate in events/congresses/seminars, or to work/do internships, and Academic, that relates to the MBA extension in an International Business School. If the respondents have not been abroad, they will be driven to the profile session.
The questionnaire (Table 2) was composed of 44 items on a Likert seven-point scale, ranging from 1 = totally disagree to 7 = totally agree, in a direct coded format. There are five profile questions about Age, Gender, Occupation, Professional Experience, and Household Income, and three questions about frequencies of visits, internships, and work abroad in the last ten years.
3.3. Design
The original and complete conceptual model (Figure 1) used in this study is a compilation of many author’s conceptions about the four main elements that relate to the MBA student’s career internationalization process. However, we proposed a step further, assuming as multidimensional constructs all those main concepts: Internationalization at Home, Global Skills (GS), Experience Abroad, and Global Mindset (GM). Internationalization at Home was split into two constructs—Personal (IHP) and Institutional (IHI)—as they have primary differences that relate to the individual and to the school that the respondent attended. Besides
this, Experience Abroad was also split into Personal (EAP) and Academic (EAA) constructs, that differs from each other as there are distinct attributes related to the personal experiences lived in foreign countries when compared to the academic experiences one can have when studied abroad.
There is a relevant difference from McCormick & Stephen’s study in terms of the interrelationship among the concepts. We proposed Experience Abroad-Personal (EAP) as a pure independent construct, influencing the other three dependent ones—Global Skills (GS), Global Mindset (GM), and Internationalization at Home-Personal (IHP). We considered the Internationalization at Home-Institutional (IHI) an independent construct that impacts Internationalization at Home-Personal (IHP), Global Skills (GS), and Global Mindset (GM). Unfortunately, Experience Abroad-Academic (EAA) was introduced neither in the model nor in the validation tests, as there are not enough answers. Finally, we tested an alternate model for a moderating effect of Experience Abroad-Personal (EAP) on the path Internationalization at Home-Personal (IHP) to Global Skills (GS).
Descriptive data analysis and preliminary tests (missing, outliers, normality, linearity, kurtosis, and skewness) were done using SPSS version 22. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks non-parametric test was applied to compare groups—in progress and former MBA students to check if there were significant differences between them that could imply a data split. To comprehend the interaction between constructs and to validate constructs formulation, the PLS (Partial Least Squares) technique was used through the software WarpPLS, version 7.0. Missing data imputations were done using the Multiple Regression Imputation Method (MREGR) offered by WarpPLS, which yields the least biased mean path coefficient estimates (Kock, 2020).
In short, Figure 1 portrays in an integrated manner the five most important coepts and its connections with each other, configuring the hypotheses tested in the proposed model of this study. From left to right, the ellipses show the multidimensional constructs that forge the basis of the internationalization process by which MBA students go through when engaged in a globalized learning movement. The journey involves the concepts of internationalization at home including personal (IHP) and institutional (IHI) aspects, the experience acquired abroad (EAP) in its personal features, the global competence and skills (GS) that comes from the learning effort and a global mindset (GM), understood as an international conscience the students form along the way.
4. Results
Statistical Summary: Item 4 provides a general view of the statistical analyses encompassing the logical based on what the data produced was explored. It starts with the questionnaire indicators (Table 2) as the supporting tool for the hypotheses testing as depicted in Figures 2-4. Data information were supplied as follows: reliability coefficients, AVE, r-square (Table 3), fit and quality indices
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Table 2. Proposed questionnaire items.
Note: Items marked with *Demonstrate differences between groups (former vs. in progress), in Wilcoxon signed ranks non-parametric test. Item marked with **Refers to p-value > 0.05, reflecting the unique normal variable, in One-Sample Kolmogorov Smirnov test. Constructs marked with ***Refer to a block of questions that did not have enough answers to be considered in the model
(Table 4), discriminant analysis (Table 5), normalized structure loadings and cross-loadings (Table 6), path coefficients and respective p-values (Table 7), r-square contributions (Table 8) and finally the hypotheses validation on Table 9.
The descriptive analysis (Table 2) shows that the sample profile is predominantly male (54%); aged between 36 and 45 years (41%); family monthly income above US$ 3764 (55%), which is a high income for Brazilian standards (minimum salary is about US$ 200); professional experienced over ten years (59%); and works for Government, Government Companies or Private Companies (62%). When the data is split into two groups—in progress and former MBA students—the differences between averages corroborate the database’s quality as former students are supposed to be older, more experienced, and better paid.
The best-evaluated construct was Experience Abroad-Personal (EAP), which items range from 5.43 to 6.92 and also have narrow standard deviations. The worst-evaluated and most heterogeneous constructs were Internationalization at Home (IHP and IHI), which items range from 2.03 to 4.51 for IHP and from 1.76 to 4.69 for IHI.
A One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was performed to check the normality of the 44 variables (Table 2). The results showed no normality (p-value < 0.05) for all items, except for GS5 (p-value = 0.09). In order to check if there are different behaviors between former and in-progress MBA students, we applied the Wilcoxon signed ranks non-parametric test for paired samples, as the distribution is majority non-normal. Only 6 of the 44 items demonstrate differences between groups (Table 2). So, we can conclude that it is not recommended to split the data for analysis.
The complete model, named the original theoretical model (MTO), was evaluated after the confirmatory factor analysis. There was an overestimation risk of the proposed model (Figure 2) due to some collinearities among indicators EAP1, EAP3, and IHI9, and eight normalized structure loadings smaller than 0.70 (IHP3, IHP5, IHI7, GS7, GS8, GM1, GM2, and GM8), as well as arising from the construct IHI being at a nonideal level of explained variance (0.47), which might indicate poor convergence. According to Fornell and Larcker (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2014), the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) should be greater than 0.50.
In terms of Cronbach’s Alpha and Composite Reliability, all constructs have reliability coefficients greater than 0.70. The Average R-Square (ARS) is 0.49, and the SMAR (Standardized Mean Absolute Residual) is 0.10. Reliability coefficients and Fit and Quality Indices for MTO are presented in Table 3 and Table 4.
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Figure 2. Original Theoretical Model—MTO (35 indicators).
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Table 3. Reliability coefficients, AVE and R2.
*Note: MTO—Original Theoretical Model; MTA—Adjusted Theoretical Model.
The Discriminant Validity was also considered acceptable, due to all square roots of Average Variances Extracted (AVE) shown on diagonal (Table 5) being higher than the respective correlations among latent variables.
Despite this stunning performance, the MTO could be improved to attend the AVE criteria and eliminate some offending estimates that could bias the results. We can also obtain a more parsimonious model, with fewer indicators and a nearly similar reliability level. Although this objective should be retrieved, we cannot eliminate too many indicators, in order to not jeopardize the content validity of the constructs (Bido et al., 2019).
To correct those slight deviations, the indicators with normalized structure loadings smaller than 0.70 and those which have a multicollinearity propensity (loadings close to 0.95) were progressively excluded, one at a time, from the worst to the less critical level, to avoid a massive exclusion. The indicators removed from the MTO were EAP3 (0.95) and IHI9 (0.93), GM1 (0.61), IHI7 (0.69), and IHP5 (0.67).
So, a more dynamic, parsimonious, and robust model, named Adjusted Theoretical Model (MTA), was obtained (Figure 3). Reliability coefficients and Fit and Quality Indices are presented in Table 3 and Table 4. The Discriminant Validity was also improved (Table 5) for Internationalization at Home-Institutional (IHI) and stay almost the same for other constructs. All the constructs face validity remains the same after the purification process.
The MTA model shows a better AVE for all constructs, above 0.50, correcting problems related to the IHI construct in MTO. The Composite Reliability Indices for constructs stay almost the same, but there is a little reduction in Cronbach’s Alpha for all constructs, except for Global Skills (GS). IHI Cronbach’s Alpha has increased to the minimum acceptable (0.70). The Average R-Square (ARS) slightly increases to an acceptable range (0.51), considering the minimum level of 0.26 for the Social Sciences (Cohen, 1988).
Concerning the R2 coefficient, it can be seen that Internationalization at Home-
Note1: Square roots of average variances extracted (AVEs) shown on main diagonals; Note2: p-values are showed above the main diagonal for each model.
Personal (IHP) decreases from 0.51 to 0.47, Global Skills (GS) increases from 0.40 to 0.44, and Global Mindset (GM), from 0.55 to 0.62. Otherwise, the SMAR (Standardized Mean Absolute Residual) is nearly the same (0.10). The normalized structure loadings and cross-loading for MTA are shown in Table 6.
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Figure 3. Adjusted Theoretical Model—MTA (30 indicators).
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Table 6. Normalized structure loadings and cross-loadings for MTA*.
*Note: Loadings and cross-loadings shown are unrotated and after Kaiser normalization.
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Table 7. Path coefficients (p-values) for models.
Once evaluated the measurement and validity of MTA, we started the structure analysis. There are two main differences between models (Figure 2 and Figure 3 and Table 7): two paths became significative: IHI towards GM (β = 0.12; p = 0.08) at MTO and (β = 0.32; p < 0.01) at MTA; and IHP towards GM (β = 0.12, p = 0.09 at MTO; β = 0.32, p < 0.01 at MTA). All other path coefficients have almost the same significance metrics in both models.
Therefore, the analysis of path coefficients will be carried out exclusively on the MTA. It can be seen that IHI influences IHP with β = 0.66 (p < 0.01) and the GM with β = 0.32 (p < 0.01). The contribution of IHI to the IHP’s R2 is greater than 95% of the total, that is, 0.45 of 0.47, but its contribution to the GM’s R2 is much smaller, with only 16% of the total, that is, 0.10 of 0.62.
These contributions show that the educational environment can induce more globalizing behaviors at the individual level, mainly in terms of personal interactions with faculty and colleagues in an integrated global sense. The Internationalization at Home, by means of institutional tools like adequate curriculum (Watkins & Smith, 2018; De Wit, 2020) and innovative didactic technologies (Jiang, 2022; Xu, 2019; Kenna, 2017; Mittelmeier et al., 2021), provide access and intercultural integration of nonmobile students with cohorts regarding international issues (Almeida et al., 2019).
In turn, IHP impacts GM with a β = 0.32 (p < 0.01), representing only about 11% of GM’s R2. In comparison, it impacts Global Skills (GS) with a β = 0.38 (p < 0.01), contributing about 41% of the GS’s R2. That is, personal interactions in an internationalization view is essential for the development of global skills, which in turn generate a more robust Global Mindset, since GS impacts GM with a β = 0.68 (p < 0.01), contributing about 71% of the GM’s R2. In other words, it seems clear that the main path among those constructs is through IHI → IHP → GS → GM. For a long time, the literature has been studying those concepts, from pedagogical initiatives towards internationalization aiming to provide the development of skills and a global mindset in higher education students (Lee & Cai, 2019; McCormick & Stephen, 2016; Beelen & Jones, 2018), but in a non-simultaneous integrating approach.
When we evaluate Experience Abroad Personal (EAP), it can be seen that significatively influences Global Skills (GS), with a β = 0.46 (p < 0.01), contributing to 57% of the GS’s R2. Although IHP has a relevant contribution of 41% of the explanation of the GS’s R2, the practical activities carried out abroad presents itself as being even more critical to shaping GS. An international travel per se is an important way of personal learning. Specific trips like international business conference bring important social educational outcomes (Blackburn & Wise, 2013). There is a nexus between learning and traveling. Additionally, Inkson & Meyers (2003) argue that although experience abroad can be considered a social experience, the career development is significant for most of those involved. All R2 contributions are shown in Table 8.
Given the relevant contribution of EAP to the GS’s R2 (56%), an alternative analysis was performed with EAP as a moderating latent variable between IHP and GS (Figure 4), but it resulted in a worse quality to the Global Skills’ R2 (only 0.21). Besides this, the path coefficient for EAP as a moderator became unsignificant (β =
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Table 8. R-squared contributions for MTA.
Note 1: Lines contains Endogenous Constructs. Note 2: R-squared contributions of predictor lat. vars.; columns = predictor lat. vars.; rows = criteria lat. vars.; negative sign = reduction in R-squared.
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Figure 4. MTA (30 indicators) with EAP moderating effect.
−0.11; p = 0.10), while the contribution to the GS’s R2 was only −0.02, proving the inexistence of moderate effect.
Finally, we evaluate the nine hypotheses (Table 9) prescribed in Figure 1. We can conclude that Internationalization at Home-Institutional impacts Global Mindset (β = 0.32; p < 0.01) and Internationalization at Home-Personal (β = 0.66; p < 0.01), as seen before, supporting Hypothesis 7 and 1, but not supporting Hypothesis 4, as the path coefficient between Internationalization at Home-Institutional and Global Skills was no significative (β = 0.03; p = 0.37). This evidence shows that the Business School efforts and infrastructure for internationalizing their students can impact their Global Mindset and their own perception about an internationalized world, but not contribute directly to the Global Skills development.
The Global Skills enhancing can be obtained by the mediation of Internationalization at Home-Personal (β = 0.38; p < 0.01), supporting Hypothesis 3, as this construct reflects aspects related to the individual that are essential to the development of a very specialized skill. In other words, if the students cannot internalize the globalization values at personal level, they will not be successful in skills development, despite the academic environment efforts. Additionally, Internationalization at Home-Personal impacts at the same extension the Global Mindset (β = 0.32; p < 0.01) for identical reasons, supporting Hypothesis 6.
In terms of Experience Abroad-Personal, we can observe that it was only significatively associated with Global Skills (β = 0.46; p < 0.01), supporting Hypothesis 5. There were no significative path coefficients between the referred construct
towards Internationalization at Home-Personal (β = 0.09; p = 0.17) neither Global Mindset (β = 0.02; p = 0.41), failing to support Hypothesis 2 and 8. Finally, Hypothesis 9 is supported by the significative path coefficient between Global Skills and Global Mindset (β = 0.68; p < 0.01), revealing that the higher Global Skills, the greater Global Mindset.
As Global Mindset was our unique endogenous construct that receives the maximum number of links (4), we further evaluated the nonlinear bivariate relationships between GM and each other construct. Even though this kind of evaluation is somewhat novel in PLS papers and requires caution (Kock, 2020), we decided to present it to point out some amazing relations.
Both Institutional and Personal Internationalization at Home have a similar nonlinear relationship with Global Mindset, despite the slope of the IHI x GM curve being slightly more accentuated than IHP x GM. In practical terms, it means that the MBA student who has a higher Global Mindset also has a higher Internationalization at Home-Personal than Internationalization at Home-Institutional.
In the relationship between Experience Abroad-Personal and Global Mindset, we can see a very different curve behavior. At the bottom of the EAP scale, from 4.40 to 4.90, there is a corresponding increase in GM, that is, the students with less experience abroad had a perception that EAP could contribute to GM. Nevertheless, from 4.90 to 6.00, the EAP mid-scale has a negative contribution to the increase of GM, which means that students who had an intermediate experience abroad do not perceive a positive contribution to GM. In contrast, those who were successfully exposed to experiences abroad (above 6.00) denote an exponentially contribution to GM’s increase.
Finally, GS has a consistent contribution to GM at the full extension of the scale, especially at the lower GS values, when GM’s increase is more evident. Although above 3.01, the angle of inclination of the curve becomes smooth, there is still a relevant contribution to GM. In practical terms, the more Global Skills were developed, the higher the Global Mindset.
5. Discussion
The findings brought new insights that can reduce the fragmented vision related to the MBA student’s career internationalization and can help Institutions and students to identify which are the main factors that deliver better global skills and mindset needed to a global career.
The results let us conclude that there is a path that better explain the relationships of the constructs: Internationalization at Home-Institutional impacts Internationalization at Home-Personal that influences Global Skills, corroborated by the antecedent Personal Experience Abroad, and finally, Global Skills impacts Global Mindset.
That means for High Education Institutions that it is not enough to develop a fantastic infrastructure for internationalization if students could not convert these resources into personal behaviors towards being self-internationalized. Those personal perceptions are the second contributor to the Global Skills explanation since the MBA students experience abroad is the best contributor. Moreover, those experiences should be exceptionally well succeeded to explain high global skills. If not, bad or regular experiences could even contribute to downgrading global skills. Finally, Global Skills is the best estimator for Global Mindset.
Based on these results, this work’s main practical contributions are related to the best efforts that should be invoked to develop global skills and global mindset. Besides offering classes in a foreign language and international databases, professors must have international experience and encourage students to consider intercultural aspects. This is partially in line with McCormick & Stephen (2016)’s findings, as they did not use an integrated model for evaluation. Moreover, there must be a worldwide personal perceptions improving, built on international contacts with professors, students, and research developed abroad. In short, Internationalization at Home, a consolidated concept in higher education internationalization (Middlehurst, 2013; Watkins & Smith, 2018), received lower mean scores in its two subdimensions (institutional and personal), indicating there is plenty of room for improvement in this area. Furthermore, experiences abroad should ponder live with people from other cultures and different realities. The leading global skills issues are those related to fluency in everyday business language and technical understanding in the area of expertise. Finally, the most critical issues about global mindset refer to the ethics and values differentiation, and environmental and share of responsibility awareness.
In terms of theoretical contributions, we can highlight that there is no moderate effect for Experience Abroad towards the relation Internationalization at Home-Personal and Global Skills, but a significative antecedent contribution to Global Skills. Another contribution is the mediation role that Global Skills has among Internationalization at Home-Personal and Institutional towards Global Mindset. Those contributions partially validate McCormick and Stephen’s model and extend their conclusions in an integrated approach. Another point to be highlighted in the theoretical implications is that Internationalization at Home can be seen as two connected but distinct ideas, 1) one linked to the efforts made by the higher education institution in terms of internationalization of curriculum (Stein, 2021; Watkins & Smith, 2018; De Wit, 2020), and innovative pedagogic approaches (Kenna, 2017; Mittelmeier et al., 2021; Simm & Marvell, 2017; Rauer et al., 2021), and 2) the other related to the possibilities of interactions made by the students with international colleagues, professors, faculties and staff (Clifford & Montgomery, 2014; Middlehurst, 2013; Smaoui, 2021; Watkins & Smith, 2018; Zhang et al., 2016). The academic subdimension remains to be tested in future studies. This reflects a promising field to comprehending efforts and consequences that could enhance internationalization success for students and MBA Schools from emerging countries. Future research could also be done in a cross-country design to compare MBA students’ opinions from different countries and cultures, as well as in an experimental design to differentiate two groups—MBA Students who attended an Exchange Academic Program and those who did not.
Despite these important and useful practical and theoretical contributions, there are some main limitations for this study: 1) the cross-section sample that makes the analysis valid only for this time; 2) the non-probabilistic sample that implies no inferences for Brazilian MBA students’ population; 3) the scarcity of answers about Experience Abroad—Academic, due to the absence of students with this kind of experience in the sample.
6. Conclusion
This paper aims to evaluate the internationalization of MBA students’ career and academic life by means of a research model that intends to integrate four fundamental constructs identified in the literature. The first one, internationalization at home (IH) is related to a globalized learning acquired at the student’s home country without the necessity of going abroad, its costs and challenges. Internationalization at home involves the contacts with foreign students (at home), curriculum aspects and innovative pedagogic approach. The second construct is exactly the traditional experience obtained in a foreign country with its personal and academic consequences for the learning process. The third concept considered in the study is linked to the competences and knowledges developed either abroad or at home, and finally the fourth construct is connected to a conscience the student forms along the international journey. The results obtained in the statistical analysis showed that both experiences acquired at home and/or abroad contributes significantly to the development of global skills and also to the evolution of a global mindset in the students. These findings might contribute to the avoidance of a fragmented vision of the components of an internationalization of career, which could help institutions and students in the process of identifying the critical factors for the delivery of better global skills and mindset necessary to a global success.