The Transferability of Western Business Education to the East

• Date: 01 January 2020
• Author: Paul W. Beamish
• Published date: 01 January 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12281

The Transferability of Western Business Education to

the East

Paul W. Beamish

Western University

The objectives of this Special Issue were to: establish a foundation for the exchange of

ideas between East and West; look at similarities and differences between them; clarify

how the East may form boundary conditions to the established theories/practices in the

West; help lay the foundation for indigenous theory building from the East (where the

West can learn from), and determine whether the business models in the East and West

will/should converge. In contrast to the other papers in the special issue, this Essay

focuses on business education models.

This essay specifically focuses on the transference of a business education practice

common in the West – the use of the case method – to the East (specifically China). It

is based on my 15 years as Executive Director of Ivey Publishing (IP), the world’s sec-

ond largest producer and distributor of business case studies, and my efforts to inter-

nationalize IP, as well as my 30 years teaching in the West, 30 years of annual visits

to China, and my experience writing over 40 published teaching cases which deal

with business in China. Many of these cases were written with Chinese co-authors.

It is framed according to Rogers’ ‘Diffusion of Innovation’ model which was pub-

lished in 1962. This model explains how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technol-

ogy are spread through cultures. Rogers’ original model follows a bell shaped idea/

technology adoption approach. It begins with the innovators. The early adopters then

increase the traction of the innovation. From here early majority adopters lift the inno-

vation into the mainstream, before the late majority and the laggards jump on at the

peak and tail-end of the adoption curve. This essay will argue that China is now about

halfway through the process of adopting a teaching model with which it had negligible

modern day experience.

Address for reprints: Paul W. Beamish, Canada Research Chair in International Business, Ivey Business School,

Western University, 1255 Western Road, London, Ontario N6G 0N1, Canada (pbeamish@ivey.ca).

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C2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies

Journal of Management Studies

doi: 10.1111/joms.12281

57:1 January 2020