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Draws on relevant academic literature to explore the nature of cross‐cultural capability and goes on to consider its implications for the student experience in British undergraduate business education. Some of the key issues concerning the design of mechanisms and strategies for integrating cross‐cultural capability within the curriculum are highlighted and discussed with a view to informing what needs to be done to prepare undergraduates for the international business world of tomorrow

Examines the nature of commissioned projects in business education and the value they hold for key stakeholder groups: students, tutors and clients. Identifies the essence of commissioned projects as being a unique fusion of vocational and pedagogic (problem‐based learning) perspectives. Describes the structure of commissioned projects and argues that this is a necessary but not sufficient condition for their success. Argues that the key to their successful utilisation is the establishment of effective foundations. Identifies these as a strategy for curriculum support; a commitment to the integration of skills and knowledge; a negotiated approach to the specification of learning outcomes; a recognition of the importance of process issues; the development of a framework for applying learning; and an emphasis on the concept of reflective practice.

Although BTEC has considerably refined its approach to the development and embedding of common skills (core skills) within its Higher National Programmes in recent years, argues that there are still a number of problems associated with the practical operation of this strategy and obstacles to a deeper acceptance of the common skills pedagogy within a higher education context remain. From a survey of students who completed a Higher National Diploma at Sheffield Business School in 1993 the crucial issues in this respect were seen to be the complexity of the common skills strategy, difficulties in the area of assessment, the value placed on subject knowledge by students, the lack of an acceptance of a common skills profile when applying for jobs, interviews, and further study, the fact that students thought some skills to be more important than others, and the fact that the development of skills was not undertaken with sufficient reference to probable future contexts where they could be utilized.