Wharton partners with French business school

In another sign of the globalization of business, the Wharton School yesterday announced an alliance with the French business school INSEAD that will offer joint executive education between the two institutions. The move follows last semester's establishment of Wharton West, a satellite campus in downtown San Francisco. The alliance with INSEAD is "the other shoe dropping with respect to Wharton West," Wharton Deputy Dean David Schmittlein said. Combined with INSEAD's campuses in Fontainebleau, France and Singapore, the alliance will create opportunities for students and faculty to use four different campuses on three continents. The alliance will offer graduate and executive education on a global scale, faculty exchanges and collaboration, along with the creation of a center for global research. "This announcement, along with Wharton West, is an indication that education is truly a global business," Wharton Vice Dean of Executive Education Bob Mittelstaedt said. The announcement, which has been in the works for the past year, was well received by faculty and students. "After we announced it, we immediately had requests from students looking to find out more," Vice Dean of Wharton Graduate Division Anjani Jain said. However, since INSEAD specializes more in MBA and Ph.D. programs, the alliance will not offer undergraduate study abroad opportunities as of now. The first MBA exchange will be during the next fall semester and the first summer program will be in the summer of 2002. Faculty members relish having the additional partner and the resources that go along with it. "Academia is driven by individuals," said OPIM professor Christian Terwiesch, who received his doctorate from and co-taught a course with INSEAD. "It will allow for many ties, both research and social." In terms of research, faculty collaboration and research distribution allowing people to have their research disseminated in journals on both continents will play the most important roles. "We have basically different distribution channels in terms of research and the collaboration will allow for easier research dissemination," Terwiesch added. According to the latest Financial Times rankings, Wharton is the top ranked business school in the U.S. and INSEAD is the top ranked foreign business school. Wharton dropped to fourth place in the most recent U.S. News & World Report rankings. The strength and location of INSEAD were important factors when Wharton was choosing an international partner. Wharton approached INSEAD about 10 months ago. According to Mittelstaedt, "part of the reason we chose INSEAD was a survey conducted last year," that showed more faculty were interested in working with INSEAD than any other school. With the four campuses well-positioned throughout the world, INSEAD faculty doing research on Silicon Valley will be able to use Wharton West while Wharton faculty working in Asia will be able to use INSEAD's Singapore campus. "It's also a collaboration in terms of utilization of space," Schmittlein said. While it does have collaborations with the Indian School of Business and Singapore Management University, Wharton serves mainly as a consultant in helping to develop curriculums and faculty. The "scope and activity is different," Schmittlein said of the INSEAD collaboration. Wharton's alliance fits with the trend of globalization in business academia. For example, Columbia University and the London Business School recently launched a similar partnership. With the many options that are now created, it will be up to the individuals involved to decide on how they will use them. "We've got to go to work to make it happen," Terwiesch said. "It's not like Daimler and Chrysler, where all you have to do is to stick both together."