The Long-Term Career Trajectories
of IPBS Graduates

A Mixed-Methods Investigation

Damien Dupré - DCU Business School
Breda McNally - DCU Institute of Education

IPBS in one slide

The International Partnership of Business Schools, or IPBS, in an alliance currently counting 12 partners across the world.

IPBS in more details

  • A network of business schools running co-designed double-degree programmes since 1974.
  • Member institutions across Europe, North America, and Asia.
  • Shared architecture: 2 years home + 2 years partner, two internships (one abroad), two degrees on graduation.
  • More than 600 students enrolled across the network each year.

The selling proposition to students

Graduate fluent in two languages, embedded in two business cultures, with two professional networks and two internship references.

About Me

Since 2019, I have been teaching Data Analytics and Statistics at DCU Business School.

Why I’m here today?

From 6 years now, I’m a programme director of 5 undergraduate programmes at DCU Business School:

  • BA in Global Business (France) with NEOMA Business School (1998-now)
  • BA in Global Business (Spain) with ICADE at Universidad Pontificia Comillas (1999-now)
  • BA in Global Business (Germany) with ESB at Hochschule Reutlingen (1998-now)
  • BA in Global Business (USA) with Northeastern University (2001-2025)
  • BA in Global Business (Canada) with Brock University (2015-now)

The Issue

Years Abroad

2

Diploma

2

Work Placements

2

“Does this kind of 2+2 double-degree education with two internships, including one abroad, actually give our graduates a measurable advantage?”

  • The honest answer in 2026 is we don’t know. The literature is mixed and the studies that exist rarely look at business graduates from double-degree programmes specifically.

What the literature actually says

Reported effects of international education on career outcomes

Small, noisy, and almost never specific to business double-degrees with structured 2+2 mobility.

Research Strategy

680
Alumni profiles on LinkedIn
Locations, employers, and career trajectories across the seven 2+2 student groups.
71
Online survey respondents
Subjective career quality, motivation, and salary. What LinkedIn cannot reveal.
6
In-depth interviews
The why and how behind the patterns: mechanism, voice, and the unanticipated.

Part I
Alumni Profiling on LinkedIn

Profiling Alumni

Since it’s membership, DCU has graduated 2333 double degree students (854 in the French track, 720 in the German track, 419 in the Spanish track, 226 in the US track, 114 in the Canadian track).

However, only 15% are registered with the DCU Alumni office.

  • Incoming students with DCU as a host partner don’t feel belonging to the DCU community.
  • Outgoing students, are also loosing their sense of community after 2 years abroad.

The LinkedIn cohort

  • 680 DCU Global Business alumni having graduated before 2020 on LinkedIn

  • 78% of them currently working outside Ireland

Where they live today

Where they live today

One more difficulty with this cohort in the IPBS network: same diploma, opposite trajectories.

Where they live today

Five career archetypes

Cluster analysis of trajectories reveal 5 different and usually mixed career path.

How archetypes split across groups

What this preview cannot tell us

Dimension   LinkedIn   Survey
Career history & employer
Current country & mobility
Cultural-distance experience
Salary & salary trajectory
Subjective career satisfaction
Motivation for choosing 2+2

Part II
The Survey

Survey at a glance

Three numbers that the LinkedIn preview could only hint at.

Most important feature

Which elements contributed most to early career outcomes?

Degree vs. experience

How much do alumni credit the degree for your career?

Most attribute career outcomes to the degree and personal qualities, not one or the other.

What numbers cannot say

Question alumni answer   LinkedIn   Survey   Interview
How much do you earn?
How satisfied are you with your career?
Why did you choose this programme?
How did the programme actually help you?
What would you change?

LinkedIn shows the shape. The survey adds the substance. Only interviews give us the mechanism and the voice.

Part III
The Interviews

Participants

Alumnus Partnership Sector
Fiona DCU → NEOMA (France) Tech (Salesforce)
Clare DCU → Northeastern (US) Pensions / Consulting
Paul DCU → Northeastern (US) Asset servicing
Steven DCU → Northeastern (US) Aircraft leasing
Stephen DCU → Northeastern (US) FinTech
Sophia ESB Reutlingen → DCU (DE) Public-sector consulting

6 semi-structured online interviews, 22,369 alumnus-spoken words analysed, transcripts processed under DCU research-ethics protocol.

Theme prevalence across interviews

The CV-differentiator effect

“The two internships gave me a real boost over perhaps other candidates, and I felt like I was coming with a very strong CV despite the fact that I just graduated.”

— Fiona · DCU → NEOMA · now at a global tech firm

“When I was applying for my Irish companies, they were very interested in the American experience, and for my American companies, they were very interested in the Irish leg. So definitely at the start of my career, it was an advantage.”

— Steven · DCU → Northeastern · now in aircraft leasing

“What if?”

“The position I’m at in my career now, could I have got here without a double degree? Yes, I think I could have. But I wouldn’t have got into Microsoft as easy without the two internships and experience in France. So I think it’s all related.”

— Fiona

This is exactly the attribution pattern the survey shows quantitatively: degree as significant factor, alongside personal qualities, never sole driver.

Intercultural Experience

“I really still remember the classes we had on intercultural communication. That really helped! Talking about misunderstandings between cultures and reflecting on those really shaped me until today, and I still recall this much more than any of my other classes.”

— Sophia · ESB Reutlingen → DCU · now in Berlin

“Having that experience was really valuable then coming to London where you’re working in a very international office, just having that understanding of different cultures, different values, different approaches […], you just had a better understanding on how to navigate these things.”

— Clare · DCU → Northeastern · now at Mercer Dublin

Final Thoughts

What the results reveals

Validated by survey

  • Strong international dimension to current roles (74% core)
  • High cross-border mobility post-graduation (66%)
  • Senior progression realised across the cohort

New insights

  • Career satisfaction 3.91 / 5; job satisfaction 4.07 / 5
  • 83% would re-choose the programme
  • Programme valued as a transformation, not a skills package
  • Career attribution = degree + personal qualities, not either alone

Why this matters beyond DCU

  • For students: evidence-based information about programme value, a tool against the “is it worth it?” doubt that drives drop-out at partner schools.
  • For programme directors: a longitudinal KPI dashboard tied to AACSB’s engagement, innovation, impact triad.
  • For employers: clear signal, a 2+2 proxies for the international competencies they are looking for
  • For the literature: the first cohort-specific, mixed-methods, multi-institution study of business-school double-degrees with structured 2+2 mobility.


Thanks for your attention

and don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions!

@damien-dupre
@damien-dupre

https://damien-dupre.github.io
damien.dupre@dcu.ie