Global partnership as a strategy for internationalisation: MBAs in Latin America and Asia and Oceania

In the context of globalisation, higher education institutions not only have to be global in their internal practices, but also have to appear as international hubs to their constituencies. International partnership has been an essential part of these strategies. Partnerships help institutions in creating practices that are costly, as well as enhancing reputation by partnering with prestigious schools. Moreover, different spectrums of partnerships require varying degrees of commitment. Noting that the motivation for and engagement in partnerships is particularly strong in business, and the region of Latin America as well as Asia and Oceania, this study attempts to depict how institutions engage internationalisation, revealed as the exchange network and dual degree network of the 20 best MBA programmes in the two regions. Employing social network analysis, we found that schools have different levels of engagement in building partnerships and the region and reputation of schools matter for partnerships. Top-ranked MBA programmes tend to have more exchange partners and have a higher level of popularity in the exchange network. The dual degree network was more restricted in terms of the number, country, and prestige. Asian and Oceanian MBA programmes tend to have more exchange partners but are less likely to engage in dual degree partnerships, compared to the Latin American MBA programmes. Some institutions focus their dual degree network on a particular region. As higher education institutions actively engage in various types of collaborations, the findings provide meaningful implications for understanding the patterns of international partnership among higher education institutions.