ABSTRACT
Executive education shapes global business and is itself a global commodity. It grew out of the managerial revolution in the US to train top managers in their roles as professional top executives. In the 1950s and 1960s, executive programs inspired by the new Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School spread to many countries around the world in a remarkably standardized form. The process was pushed forward, in the institutional context of Americanization and the Cold War, by an increasing international demand for short programs that served top executives directly. Some of the most prestigious executive programs in the twenty-first century were established in this formative period, and in many places these programs were given higher priority than degree programs when new business schools emerged. This phenomenon makes the internationalization of executive education an example of a concept developing internationally in a relatively standardized format.
