HONG KONG—The new, Indian-born dean of Harvard Business School ruled out opening campuses in Asia to tap huge demand from students in the region.


Nitin Nohria, Harvard Business School's first non-North American born dean.

Nitin Nohria took up Harvard Business School's top spot on July 1, becoming the school's first dean to be born outside the U.S. and Canada. One of his first public gestures in the new role was a round-the-world trip with stops in Mumbai, Hong Kong and Shanghai. He has championed the idea of a coming "Global Century" in business as America's economic dominance is challenged by Asia in particular.

But in an interview Monday in Hong Kong, Mr. Nohria dismissed the idea that either his appointment or his trip signals that one of the top U.S. business schools is about to open a fully fledged campus overseas. "I don't think that is necessary and nor do we have the ambition to do that," he said. "We're in the business of chasing knowledge and not chasing demand."

Mr. Nohria said Harvard's preferred strategy would be to maintain "a small physical footprint" in Asia through research centers and executive-education programs, which would provide the U.S. school with a "very large intellectual footprint."

Demand for business education from Asia has outstripped that of all other regions combined in recent years, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council, which administers the standard entrance exam used by most global business schools. The number of Graduate Management Admission Tests taken in Asia last year was 34,449, compared with 21,376 in North America. Also, the proportion of GMAT scores submitted by Asian applicants to business programs in the U.S. fell from 77% in 2005 to 67% in 2009, while regional programs in India, China, Hong Kong and Singapore all experienced a rise in the number of GMAT scores they received over the same period.

The surge in demand is especially pronounced among students from China and India. Between 2005 and 2009, the number of GMAT exams taken by Chinese and Indian citizens more than doubled, the council said. India's cabinet, meanwhile, has approved a proposal to allow foreign universities to set up branches in the country. Duke University has expressed interest in opening a business school in India, and other U.S. universities are said to be interested in both the Chinese and Indian markets.

Mr. Nohria, who has been on Harvard's faculty since 1988, said Harvard has already made significant strides in recent years to be better aligned with the global economy. Two decades ago, the school taught few case studies based on Asian examples, but now has more than 100 Chinese and 70 Indian cases.

"We will always be in some ways deeply rooted in America," Mr. Nohria said. "That is our heritage, that's where we are located."

Mr. Nohria also said that roughly 40% of all Harvard Business School students are now from outside of the U.S. and there is no intention to deliberately increase this proportion.

"Should that mix be 50% or 60%? We should always remain fundamentally a meritocracy," he said. "That's been a great strength of American educational institutions. I'm proof of that. If the student body becomes more international that's because that's what the best students in the world look like. It's not like we have targets."