International strategy

Strategy

We aim to develop our brand awareness & reputation, and to cover the specific needs of our international students and partners, in order to develop our revenue through the quality of our research, our programmes and the attractiveness of our campuses at home and abroad. Our main challenges are as follow :

• Maintain the ability of our faculty to produce high quality and impactful research, especially within our three Centres of Excellence and five areas of Expertise, and to train students and professionals, thanks to our international talent recruitment strategy.
• Increase our brand awareness, by focusing on offering extremely attractive programmes for international students:
  • Suitable for undergraduate students: International BBA;
  • Suitable for postgraduate students: 3 premium MSc programmes based on our expertise and top international ranking: MAI (Purchasing & Innovation), ISLI (Supply Chain Management), and Wine & Spirits Management;
  • Suitable for experienced managers: International MBA;
  • Suitable for decision-makers: Euro-Asia DBA and Art DBA.
• Provide a valuable multicultural student experience on our home campuses, by increasing the number of international students, and by adding an international dimension to our internal culture.
• Increase international student satisfaction by improving their experience before (admission process), during (educational quality) and after the course (employability in France & abroad, active alumni network).
• Maintain our strength in student mobility by targeting high quality partners.
• Confirm our ability to increase the number of fee-paying students we recruit.
• Use our campuses abroad to allow students who do not plan on coming to France, for financial or cultural reasons, to benefit from our expertise.

We devote substantial human and financial resources to supporting our international development strategy and achieving our goals.

Implementing a quality and accreditation policy

To have a resolutely international vision, mission and positioning must result in getting international accreditation, which will confirm that the strategic plans have succeeded.

As such, at the core of the KEDGE international strategy is the understanding that the objectives set out in the 2015-2020 strategic plan can only be achieved through a dynamic quality and accreditation policy. In this respect, KEDGE Business School has succeeded in renewing its AACSB accreditation in 2015 and achieved all three international accreditations.

When it comes to international ranking, KEDGE has been ranked in the top 60/80 best European Business Schools since 2007. In December 2016, KEDGE was ranked 33rd in the Financial Times European Business Schools ranking. KEDGE MBA was also ranked 22nd among the world’s MBAs.

Programme internationalisation

Our objectives are as follow:

• Train managers in cross-cultural differences before sending them abroad;
• Offer programmes that attract foreign students;
• Provide an educational portfolio for home-based executives and those working internationally;
• Collaborate with corporate recruiters to define the profiles of international undergraduate students; and
• Guarantee the integration of CSR into management practice.

Below are a few examples of the internationalisation of KEDGE programmes:

• All programmes are defined in terms of skills relating to the employment market. In terms of graduate international skills, the emphasis is on language skills, geo-strategic awareness, active learning abroad and self-knowledge coupled with openness to other cultures
• All programmes comply to the Bologna and ECTS frameworks
• A policy of internationalisation of courses has been implemented
• A growing number of management courses are taught in English, especially for programmes such as KEDGE Bachelor, International BBA or “Grande Ecole” master programme
• One third of English taught classes at International Seminars are delivered by the Faculty and Researchers from partner institutions.

International partners

The management of the academic partnership portfolio is handled by the International Development office, whose mission is to promote international educational exchange and to foster and strengthen the international character of the School by introducing, supporting, and developing a wide range of international and intercultural educational opportunities for national and foreign students (graduate and undergraduate), faculty, and researchers.

KEDGE continues to make progress in improving the overall quality of its academic partnership profile, while at the same time, maintaining an adequate network that allows all students to have a minimum of six months of international experience prior to graduation. While many students choose to obtain this experience through internships abroad, nearly half of the students in the “Grande Ecole” master programme, and all of the students in the IBBA and EBP programmes, gained this experience through the extensive network of foreign partners.

It is obvious that the partnership development strategy continues to place a significant emphasis on developing partnerships with accredited institutions to guarantee quality. In instances where the academic institution was not EQUIS or AACSB accredited (or in certain cases, EPAS or AMBA accredited), the new partner was considered to be in the top 10% of academic institutions in its country, or on the wayt to gaining accreditation through its internationalisation policies and strategy.  An exception to this rule was the convergence of the former Toulon partners, that consisted of mainly non-accredited institutions, and are reflected in Table 8.2 below. Of the 15 new partnerships that were developed for the business-related programmes over the past three years, all but two were accredited (87%). The overall accreditation rate has risen to 56% (EQUIS/AACSB only) from 45% previously, and when EPAS and AMBA partners are added to the equation, the accreditation rate reaches 72%. 

Student mobility office

The Student Mobility Office is responsible for all of the administrative aspects of study abroad, including the sending and receiving of students on an exchange programme with academic partner institutions. 

KEDGE has recently introduced several measures that are designed to improve the overall study abroad experience for the students, and to improve the efficiency of the Student Mobility Office. Therefore, the Office has:

• Reviewed its selection processes for all programmes to improve quality assurance by creating a special Committee dedicated to the selections. It is made up of members from the Student Mobility Office, Programmes, Data Management and Quality Control Units.
• Successfully harmonised the selection processes on all campuses, having a single selection for the PGE programme (Bordeaux and Marseille campuses) as well as the KBA programme (available on 7 campuses), thanks to an internal software and videoconferencing.
• Included exchange students in international student unions dedicated to welcoming them (Interact/Melting Potes), which allows international and French students to mix from the beginning of their arrival at KEDGE, resulting in higher satisfaction and greater integration for both communities. It is also a great way to share best practises among partner universities.
• Implemented the BE GLOBAL process to facilitate the integration of students, professors coming to France from abroad or going abroad.  This among other things has enabled KEDGE to be more visible thanks to the organisation of different events such as the study abroad fair, the EBP Partner day, and the like.
• Included international students to the welcoming sessions, which are no longer solely reserved to foreign students. It allows student to mingle, better integrate and, in general, is a good way to share and enlarge our expertise to a wider field of activities. This globalisation of the orientation session is part of the BE GLOBAL process.

KEDGE ABROAD

Establishing overseas campuses has been a key component of the Kedge international strategy for over 13 years, beginning with our collaboration with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, followed by the opening of the Suzhou campus in China and the one in Dakar, Senegal in 2010 and more recently the opening of the campus in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in 2020. This strategy of overseas campus development responded to both academic and economic goals.

Academic goals include the strengthening of our positioning, the internationalisation of the faculty and student body by recruiting internationally, the additional opportunities for KEDGE students to study abroad, the increased research opportunities by developing bases in emerging countries, and the development of educational engineering.

The choice to have two campuses in China responds to the need for diversification of risks and to meet the needs of different audiences (executive in Shanghai, pre-professional in Suzhou). Economic goals include the access to new markets (in terms of student recruitment), and the offer of new opportunities to European firms or to firms located in the countries where we have campuses (teaching opportunities for executives, internships, job offers, corporate events).

The programmes offered on overseas campuses are identical to their counterpart in France. The admission, promotion and graduation processes are identical regardless of location. KEDGE has recruited faculty and staff for the overseas campuses (except affiliate campuses). Each programme is coordinated by a permanent faculty based on the Bordeaux or Marseille campus who verify that contents, pedagogy and evaluation are consistent for the same course wherever it is offered. Students on these campuses have access to the exact same information as students on the French campuses.

An overseas campus coordinator from the International Student Office works closely with the Associate Dean of Programmes to ensure uniformity of standards across campuses. The School senior management is travelling regularly to the overseas campuses to ensure smooth cooperation with the local partners.

INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY 

The International Advisory Board is chaired by the Dean and Executive Director of the School. Meetings take place approximately once a year, and in addition to those already mentioned, involve the Director of International Development, and one representative from each of the Business Units. The most recent meeting took place in August 2016.

The current Board Members are:

- Director of the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business

- Executive Director of Rotterdam School of Management

- Dean of the Faculty of Business of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University           

- Dean of EGADE Business School

- President & CEO of Cossette Communication in Canada

- Dean of Korea University Business School

- Provost & Vice President of Academic Affairs at Bentley University

- Deputy Vice Chancellor & Vice President at RMIT College of Business

- Director of HEC Montréal

- CEO of Ashridge Business School

- Dean of the School of Business and Economics at Maastricht University