Internationalisation of the curriculum in Malaysian Universities’ business faculties: Realities, implementation and challenges

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2021.100495Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The ability to function effectively in a multicultural environment will become more relevant in global recruitment.

  • The need for graduates to be equipped with relevant knowledge to enable them manage global business operations effectively.

  • Most academic staff have the knowledge about internationalisation but lack the knowhow in the design and implementation.

  • Regular trainings to be organised for academic staff to help develop relevant competencies in internationalisation.

Abstract

In today's increasingly globalised and integrated economy, the need for the internationalisation of post-secondary education curriculum cannot be over stressed. This is particularly pertinent to nations, such as Malaysia, with a fast growing number of international students and international universities. The experience and perception of academic staff of Malaysian universities' business faculties regarding the internationalisation of the business faculty curriculum is explored in this study. The central thrust of this study was to investigate the perception and experience of business faculties' academic staff on internationalising the business faculty curriculum in Malaysia. The study utilised the phenomenological approach. Data was collected through face-to-face interview with academic staff of business faculties from two universities using semi-structured interview. The responses were sorted into codes (open coding & analytical/axial coding) and analysed through continuous review of the participants' own words/phrases. Among the key findings of the study is that, most academic staff in Malaysian business faculties have the knowledge about internationalisation of the curriculum but lack the knowhow in the design and implementation. Vital recommendations including the need for regular capacity building trainings to be organised for academic staff to help develop relevant competence in the internationalisation of the curriculum were proposed.

Introduction

In recent times, global businesses are increasingly recruiting globally while only applicants who have international experience are highly employable. This according to Brown et al. (2008) is because they have demonstrated drive, resilience and inter-cultural sensitivities as well as language skills to succeed in uncertain complex situations. The capacity to operate globally has been identified by Jackson (2009a) as one of the key industry-relevant competencies and skills of modern graduates. Employers from the US, UK, and Australia have expressed dissatisfaction about graduates’ inadequate development of relevant competencies required to effectively operate and compete globally. There is an increasing need for graduates to be equipped with relevant knowledge, skills, and perspectives to enable them develop, conduct, and manage international business operations effectively. The role of internationalisation in meeting this need cannot be overemphasized. Field (2001) cited by Jackson (2009b) posited that internationalisation will play a crucial role in developing the competences required of graduates in the new global economy. Consequently, universities and business schools are responding to this development by embedding internationalisation into their institutional visions and mission, though without adequate attention to initiatives that will enhance global employability of the graduates (Minocha et al., 2018). Nevertheless, some of them have amended their curricula by highlighting cross-cultural skills and capabilities necessary to prepare graduates to operate and compete effectively in a global business environment (Martin et al., 2011; Randolph, 2011).

The internationalisation of higher education in Malaysia started in the 1980s according to Munusamy and Hashim (2019). However, there is still limited knowledge on the internationalisation of the curriculum (IoC) in Malaysian higher education; specifically, on the perception, experience and challenges of internationalisation of the curriculum of specific academic programmes among the academic staff. The significance of this knowledge gap was emphasized by Beelen (2011) cited by Foster and Carver (2018) when he expressed the need for more research into the involvement of academic staff in the specific aspects of internationsalisation of the curriculum. Therefore, this study will contribute to filling this knowledge gap by investigating the academic staff's understanding of the concept of IoC, the implementation of IoC in Malaysian universities' business faculties, the roles of academic staff and the challenges of curriculum internationalisation in Malaysia Universities' business faculties.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the academic staffs' understanding, experience and challenge of internationalisation of the curriculum in Malaysian business faculties. This study is significant because, firstly, it contributes to filling a critical knowledge gap on the current practices of internationalisation of the curriculum in Malaysian Universities' business faculties. Secondly, it provides valuable knowledge on IoC required to adequately internationalise the Malaysian business faculties curriculum. The central question guiding this research is; what is the staffs’ understanding, experience, and challenge of internationalisation of the curriculum of business faculties in Malaysian higher educational institutions? The specific research questions guiding the study include:

  • RQ 1: What does internationalisation of the curriculum mean to academic staff?

  • RQ 2: How is internationalisation of the curriculum currently being implemented?

  • RQ 3: How and when are the academic staffs engaged in the internationalisation of the curriculum?

  • RQ 4: What type of training is available for teaching staff in executing an internationalised curriculum?

  • RQ 5: What are the challenges in internationalising the curriculum?

Section snippets

Literature Review

This section presents the views and findings of different authors in the field of internationalisation, followed by the role of academic staff in internationalising the curriculum. Then the issues related to internationalisation were also reviewed.

Methodology

The study utilised the phenomenological approach. This approach was chosen because it describes the meaning for several individuals' lived experiences of a concept or a phenomenon (in this case, internationalisation of the curriculum). Moreover, it also describes what participants have in common and is concerned with ‘what’ individuals experienced and ‘how’ they experienced it. Since this study was targeted at a particular group of people (academic staff), purposeful sampling was used to select

Results

The analysis suggested six distinct themes amongst the verbal responses provided by participants. The results are discussed for each question separately. Participant comments are in quotation marks with the participant ID number in brackets.

Discussion

This study was set out to investigate the experience, perception, and challenges of internationalisation of the curriculum among academic staff of Malaysian Universities’ business faculties. The study was motivated by the growing trend in global recruitment among multinational companies in addition to the need to prepare students who are the would-be applicants of these multinationals for the global labour market. Malaysia has the third largest number of international students in Asia and is

Recommendations and Conclusion

One of the recommendations for curriculum internationalisation would be the provision of regular formal training on internationalisation for all academic staff. The training has to be objective-driven and take the international context of the curriculum into account. These trainings should be fixed in order to guarantee the needed competencies of academic staff as well as to promote consistency. Additionally, the university should provide opportunities for lecturers to be more exposed to

Author statement

Uchechi Cynthia Ohajionu: Abstract, Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Results, Discussion, Recommendations and Conclusion. Writing- Reviewing and Editing.

References (35)

  • F.P. Geijsel et al.

    The effect of teacher psychological and school organizational and leadership factors on teachers' professional learning in Dutch schools

    The Elementary School Journal

    (2009)
  • R. Goddard et al.

    Collective teacher efficacy: Its meaning, measure, and impact on student achievement

    American Educational Research Journal

    (2000)
  • T. Guardian

    Top 20 countries for international students

  • Y. Hill et al.

    “Students' perceptions of quality in higher education”

    Quality Assurance in Education

    (2003)
  • D. Jackson

    An international profile of industry-relevant competencies and skill gaps in modern graduates

    International Journal of Management in Education

    (2009)
  • D. Jackson

    Profiling industry-relevant management graduate competencies: The need for a fresh approach

    International Journal of Management in Education

    (2009)
  • J. Knight

    Internationalization of Higher Education: a conceptual framework, in J. Knight & H. De Wit (Eds) Internationalization of Higher Education in Asia Pacific Countries

    European Association for International Education

    (1997)
  • Cited by (6)

    1

    Address: Asik Veysel Mah. Talatpasa Cad. Kamelya Evleri Sitesi B7 Blok No: 12B IC, Kapi No: 14 Esenyurt/Istanbul, Turkey.

    View full text