Purpose

As markets, economies and institutions are increasingly globalized, there is a growing understanding of the need to introduce intercultural learning alongside business learning. Participating in a study abroad program is potentially one of the most important experiences for any college student. Such programs provide students the opportunity to immerse themselves in different cultures and gain new perspectives. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to identify the main factors that students consider when selecting a program; to integrate quality function deployment (QFD), benchmarking and Hoshin Kanri in the analysis of student expectations and to examine the implications for research and practice.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was based on primary data collected from 180 students at four universities. To design an approach that helps students in the selection of a program that best satisfies their expectations, a self-designed questionnaire was used for data collection. The data were analyzed using the techniques of QFD/benchmarking. Finally, a long-term strategy is proposed based on the Hoshin Kanri theory.

Findings

The great variability in student expectations presents a challenge in designing a methodology of selection; however, it does help in identifying the most important student expectations. A key, balanced relationship among academic quality, having fun and cost cannot be ignored in this study because they represent the factors that are altogether influential in the decision to study abroad. In the current literature, the key variables of study abroad programs are discussed; however, most studies fail to incorporate student expectations. This paper will fill this gap by incorporating both key academic variables and the voice of the customer (student).

Research limitations/implications

Given the diversity of the population, the authors developed several methodologies to standardize the array of student responses to the questionnaire. Using this standardization along with several total quality management (TQM) tools allows us to simplify and categorize the different student expectations. The gathering of students’ expectations directly provided by students (voice of the customer) allows international programs to focus on the real problems and expectations that have been acknowledged, thus yielding student satisfaction with their experience, most importantly, in their field of study.

Practical implications

For universities, the current study identifies new means by which to improve the quality of international programs with the use of TQM tools including QFD, benchmarking and the Hoshin Kanri Planning Process with an evidence-based real case.

Originality/value

This paper presents a conclusive application of QFD, benchmarking and Hoshin Kanri and an analysis of how these tools can help international programs with future improvements incorporating the needs of students in their programs. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first application of these techniques to improve the international experience for business undergraduate students.

中文翻译：

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全球教育：使用精益工具探索新机遇

目的

随着市场，经济和机构日益全球化，人们越来越需要将跨文化学习与商业学习一起引入。参加留学计划可能是任何大学生最重要的经历之一。这些课程为学生提供了沉浸于不同文化中并获得新观点的机会。本文的目的是三方面的：确定学生在选择课程时要考虑的主要因素；整合质量功能部署（QFD），基准测试和Hoshin Kanri来分析学生的期望，并研究其对研究和实践的意义。

设计/方法/方法

这项研究基于从四所大学的180名学生那里收集的主要数据。为了设计一种可以帮助学生选择最能满足其期望的程序的方法，我们使用了自行设计的问卷来收集数据。使用QFD /基准测试技术分析数据。最后，基于Hoshin Kanri理论提出了一项长期策略。

发现

学生期望的巨大差异给设计选择方法提出了挑战。但是，它确实有助于确定最重要的学生期望。在这项研究中，学术质量，娱乐性和成本之间的关键，平衡关系不容忽视，因为它们代表了决定出国留学的全部因素。在当前的文献中，讨论了留学计划的关键变量。但是，大多数学习未能融合学生的期望。本文将结合关键的学术变量和客户（学生）的声音来填补这一空白。

研究局限/意义

考虑到人口的多样性，作者开发了几种方法来标准化学生对问卷的回答。将此标准化与几个全面质量管理（TQM）工具一起使用，可以使我们简化和分类学生的不同期望。由学生直接提供的学生期望（客户的声音）的收集使国际课程可以专注于已确认的实际问题和期望，从而使学生对他们的经验（最重要的是在他们的研究领域）感到满意。

实际影响

对于大学来说，当前的研究确定了新的手段，可以通过使用TQM工具（包括QFD，基准测试和Hoshin Kanri规划过程）来提高国际课程的质量，并以循证真实案例为基础。

创意/价值

本文介绍了QFD，基准测试和Hoshin Kanri的最终应用，并分析了这些工具如何为国际计划提供帮助，并在未来的改进中将学生的需求纳入他们的计划中。据作者所知，这是这些技术首次用于改善商科学生的国际经验。