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This conceptual paper aims to contribute to the knowledge management (KM) literature by seeking to determine whether wisdom management (WM) will replace KM in future.

This exploratory paper follows the interpretivist research philosophy and the deductive approach. The data collection is based on selected literatures from three disciplines (KM, philosophy and psychology). The findings were qualitatively analysed.

The findings are threefold: (1) the discussion of wisdom has been either neglected or superficially discussed in the KM literature; (2) despite the fact that wisdom is widely discussed and researched in philosophy and psychology disciplines, there is no commonly agreed upon definition of wisdom, and a dichotomy exists between the implicit and explicit theories of wisdom; (3) wisdom research in philosophy and psychology disciplines provides valuable input to KM by identifying the dimensions, components and characteristics of wisdom and wise individuals.

Important sources may have been unintentionally overlooked in this paper. This paper identifies the need for empirical research and discussion about WM as the next potential phase of KM. It offers several implications for researchers, managers and management educators as this paper shows that WM is emerging as a new discipline.

This paper makes a theoretical contribution to the fifth phase of KM by drawing attention to wisdom and WM as the next potential phase of KM.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are becoming more aware of the effects of globalization and of the fact that the need for international work experience, as well as partially or fully acquired education abroad, is increasing. The aim of the research is to analyze factors influencing international students’ decision regarding the country and HEIs and to evaluate students’ learning experience and satisfaction with their choice to develop suggestions for the improvement of different dimensions related to the quality and export of higher education.

Several research methods, such as literature review, logical and comparative analysis, as well as the empirical method to obtain information by conducting a survey, and the induction method to interpret and generalize the survey results are applied in this research. To discover learning experiences and determinants of students’ choice of the host country and HEI, research was carried out, under which two questionnaires were developed. The survey involved foreign students from seven HEIs in Latvia and one Estonian university.

The environment in which HEIs operate is becoming more open to the increasing international influence and competition and leads to increasing opportunities for international studies and choice available to students. The quality of the academic staff and study programmes are the most important factors in creating value for the student. As a result of the research, suggestions for higher education quality improvement and export development have been structured within economics, culture and quality dimensions into three levels – individual, institutional and state.

The study does not analyze the foreign students’ countries of origin in terms of political, economic situations or other factors. Upon researching the proportion of foreign students in Latvian HEIs, it was found that most students acquire education in Riga; therefore, regional HEIs have not been included in the survey.

The results obtained can be used to improve the quality of higher education and encourage the export of higher education by introducing the necessary changes in the areas identified during the research at the state as well as HEI level. The authors also provide an insight into the areas where implementation of changes is necessary to improve the international students’ level of satisfaction and their learning experience.