Introducing a Graduate Skills Business Unit into a Business Degree in Malaysia Using a Transnational Delivery Model

The School of Management and Information Systems at Victoria University Australian res ides within the Business Faculty and has a range of M anagement and I nformation S ystems degrees. In 2008 all degree programs in the Business F aculty introduced a graduate or generic skills compulsory subject that focussed on problem - solving, cr i tical thinking, communication and teamwork. This paper presents an analysis of the challenges faced when delivering the graduate/generic skills business unit into an Business degree into a Malaysian University College . Cultural, pedagogical, logistical, operational and student perceptions are some of the challenges that must be assuaged when deploying new units. Further t his paper will present preliminary quantitative data to analyse and identify key classroom delivery challenges and then facilitator/student qualitative data to provide context and deeper understanding . The challenges that arose in the rollout included; the need to customise programs into culturally different destinatio ns, the need to find and train facilitators that could deliver the graduate skills - based activities , and the adoption of a team - based learning pedagogy with the commensurate difficulty this type of pedagogy engender s in a teaching culture that is heavily r eliant upon the individual in its education system. Suggestions for improving learning outcomes are provided and include the adoption of a team - based learning pedagogy, a focussed student assessment rationale and the develop ment of a student lecturer trust relationship. -- 2011 ISECON (Information Systems Education Conference): Wilmington North Carolina