Home and away: preparing students for multicultural management

Abstract

University business schools are key providers of future managers, and in the UK, business and management students are an increasingly international and diverse body. How do their learning experiences draw on these resources of diversity and multiculturalism to prepare students for working in a global economy? This article draws on two studies of business and management undergraduate students at a new UK university. Each was in a different university school, using different research methods. Both came to similar conclusions; that strongly ethnocentric attitudes prevailed among home, UK students, systematically leading to feelings of exclusion and disadvantage among international students, whatever and wherever their origins. However, in terms of gaining understanding and skills in the field of multiculturalism, it was the international students who had the advantage. The implications for preparation of students for careers in the global economy are explored, and the positive results of some subsequent initiatives discussed.