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Hello I'm David Boggs a professor of strategy
in international business at Eastern Illinois University.
I've been here for six years, did my doctorate
at the University of Texas-Dallas.
In addition to my research in teaching, I take students
on study abroad trips, and I'm the faculty advisor
for the international business club.
In terms of research I'm engaged with EIU faculty as well as
external colleagues, and some of my graduate students
and my research interests are in the areas of strategy
and international business.
More particularly I'm interested in internationalization
of farms, technology, and infrastructure issues as they
relate to emerging markets and international experience.
International experience has been found to increase
communication and listening abilities, it enhances one's
ability to manage diversity, it helps understand world markets
which are increasing in importance, it increases
inquisitiveness and innovation.
It helps with examining ethical issues from a more
nuanced perspective.
It helps one develop vision and a broad picture mindset.
And all of these are benefits of international experience that
are somewhat in contrast to an older prevailing view that being
engaged in international business and operations
was detrimental to the career progression of managers
because of being out of sight and out of mind.
My experience with a research with a former student has
identified that international experience in fact increases
the likelihood that one will be selected to the CEO position.
International experience itself can be measured in many ways,
does one have the international experience or not,
how many years, what countries, how many countries,
were the countries culturally, economically, or geographically
different or distant from the home country?
Currently I'm working specifically on three projects
related to international experience.
The first is with two finance faculty from
the School of Business at Eastern.
Our work is looking at what is the stock price reaction to
the announcement and the installation of new CEOs
with international experience versus those without
international experience.
We expect to and are investigating to see if we
observe an increase or a positive stock market reaction
to the installation of a CEO with greater international
experience, particularly if that individual is replacing one with
less international experience.
Again, the more international the firm, the more influential
we would expect the relationship to be.
The second project that I'm working on that relates to
international experience is in regard to willingness of workers
to obtain international experience as I mentioned some
view a position abroad as a detriment to one's career
progression, and others view it more positively.
And we are seeking to understand what are the factors that
influence people to take international positions and what
are ways to encourage this given the increased importance
of international experience.
With one of the graduate students at Eastern, we have
examined our graduate and undergraduate students
willingness to work in an international context.
And interestingly we found very little difference based on
student's age, based on their course of study.
But we did find that personal relationships are very
influential, if one has family and friends with international
experience, they're more willing to obtain that or seek that out
for themselves.
The third and final study about international experience I would
like to talk about is a study of study abroad, as I mentioned
earlier I take students abroad and we see a difference
in the students that's hard to quantify of the change in their,
how they compose themselves when they have experienced living,
working, studying, spending time in another country.
And the third study with a graduate student at Eastern
is a study on student willingness to study abroad,
this is a study of strictly the undergraduate students
and identifies the items which influence them to not go
or to go abroad, and perhaps interesting for students
if they're engaged in varsity sports or have other strong
commitments, that reduces their likelihood of being able
to study abroad.
But our other findings have been that students who have studied
abroad once are more willing to work abroad later or study
abroad or engage in other international engagements
and this suggests that getting individuals to take a small
international experience will open them to much greater
more extensive international experiences.
And our additional research shows that that is a career
enhancing choice.
In conclusion, there is certainly many areas to continue
this research and expand it.
One is to look at the United States versus Europe,
versus Japan, China, Asia, and other countries of the world.
In general Europeans place a very high emphasis on gaining
international experience.
Perhaps more so than Americans, and it would be very
interesting, it's certainly interesting to me and my
colleagues to learn more about how the companies value
international experience amongst their workers.
Lastly, I mentioned that I have an interest in emerging markets
versus developed markets, and it would be very interesting
to identify if there are any differences between one's
experience in emerging markets as an international experience,
versus the developed markets which are not as different
from the United States.
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