The internationalization of higher education has gained in theoretical and empirical importance in recent decades. In this context, this article aims to describe and analyze the internationalization of business schools from the activities of their academics and based on the propositions defended by the Social Exchange Theory (SET). To achieve our goal we conducted 39 interviews with academics from business schools in the United States and Brazil, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard, Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and University of Sao Paulo (USP). We found that: (i) there are individual rewards that are not addressed by SET; (ii) there are benefits to third parties not covered by SET; (iii) certain non-rational choices are not provided by SET; and (iv) the condition of equivalence between costs and rewards provided by SET has its weaknesses. With these findings we add theoretical and empirical contributions to our theme.

The internationalization of higher education has gained in theoretical and empirical importance in recent decades. In this context, this article aims to describe and analyze the internationalization of business schools from the activities of their academics and based on the propositions defended by the Social Exchange Theory (SET). To achieve our goal we conducted 39 interviews with academics from business schools in the United States and Brazil, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard, Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and University of Sao Paulo (USP). We found that: (i) there are individual rewards that are not addressed by SET; (ii) there are benefits to third parties not covered by SET; (iii) certain non-rational choices are not provided by SET; and (iv) the condition of equivalence between costs and rewards provided by SET has its weaknesses. With these findings we add theoretical and empirical contributions to our theme.