Developing Social Identities and Business Skills in a Globalized World: The Case of Chinese MBA Students

Vivian Louie

This study examines the processes of social identity formation and business skills acquisition in a globalized world among MBA students from the People’s Republic of China. I focus on Chinese students studying in elite Master’s of Business Administration programs in the United States for the following reasons. The MBA provides the professional knowledge sought by developing nations like China, with an emphasis on global markets, and a premium on global skill sets such as flexible and creative thinking skills and cross-cultural teamwork. Chinese students are consequently engaged with learning processes that differ from the educational system in China. Additionally, Chinese students are involved in identity processes related to migration as they navigate elements of new and old cultural contexts. This study will draw on longitudinal interviews and case studies to chart how Chinese adults experience and are transformed by the learning and cultural identity processes of global postgraduate exchange.By focusing on the Chinese case, this study addresses a key gap in the literatures: namely, the ways in which students, who come to the United States through postgraduate exchanges, interact with the American social context, and how this maps onto immigration paradigms; how Chinese students educated in an examination-based system experience the learning of global skill sets; and lastly, how their identities are transformed by migration, and relatedly, how they make choices about returning to China. A MBA program is an ideal venue in which to explore such matters, as Chinese international students will be engaged in acquiring the content that can facilitate participation in the global marketplace through the learning processes necessitated by globalization. The findings will shed light on the types of policies that would facilitate the learning processes in global postgraduate exchanges, and will provide a point of departure for future research on returning graduate students, who have been trained in elite institutions of business management, and their role in shaping China.

About Vivian Louie

Vivian Louie is a sociologist who focuses her research on how immigrants learn about and engage with the educational system in the United States, and develop identities. In one stream of research, Louie has focused on how second generation individuals (American born or reared children of immigrants) learn about college and the paths they take to get there, and the identities they form as they are incorporated into American life. Her book, Compelled to Excel: Immigration, Education, and Opportunity among Chinese Americans, examines such issues among second generation Chinese Americans. She has written several papers comparing social capital and identity formation among working-class, second-generation Chinese and Dominicans, and is presently completing a study of paths to college and identities among second-generation Dominicans and Colombians. Louie is pursuing a second line of inquiry on the messages and practices immigrant parents give to their young second generation children around ethnic language, assimilation, and education. Here, she examines language as central to assimilation and identity processes, rather than as an indicator of assimilation. Louie’s third line of inquiry examines the development of social identities and business skills among MBA students from the People’s Republic of China studying in the United States. This study will examine the ways in which Chinese international MBA students, who embody transnational lives, interact with the American social context, and how this maps onto immigration paradigms, and the ways in which they experience the learning of global skill sets. She is assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and received her A.B. from Harvard University, M.A. in Communication from Stanford University, and Ph.D in Sociology from Yale University. She has previously worked as a newspaper journalist, and a lecturer in Sociology at Harvard.