Though the School of Management is leading efforts to create a network of foreign business schools, SOM Dean Edward Snyder has emphasized that institutions in the network will operate as equals.

The new Global Network for Advanced Management that Snyder is planning for SOM and roughly 20 other business schools from around the world will include both prominent institutions overseas and less globalized ones in developing nations. As Snyder recruits institutions for the network, which will collaborate on projects and exchange ideas, he said his priority is to lay a foundation that member schools can use in determining the network’s specific activities — not to have SOM run the network. Seventeen business schools from six continents have joined the network so far, and administrators at participating institutions said they appreciate having an opportunity to shape the network according to their needs.

“We’re really just trying to create the infrastructure,” Snyder said. “Then we’ll ask, ‘What would students and faculty like to do with the network?’ ”

Most leading American business schools form partnerships with international schools in developed nations, Snyder said, often ignoring a subset of schools in nations that are rising to economic prominence. But he said the upcoming network will bring together a broader mix of schools, in addition to creating programs that will mutually benefit all institutions. Snyder added that SOM will serve as a member institution rather than as a leader in the new network.

Guillermo Selva, the dean of INCAE Business School, a member of the network with campuses in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, said he finds the collaborative nature of the network particularly appealing because all schools involved will share their areas of expertise with the others. While INCAE is well known in Latin America, Selva said the school often does not receive recognition beyond the region. He added that INCAE can offer the network a useful perspective on business issues, as it is based in two countries that have weathered extensive political and economic strife.

Miriam Erez, director of MBA programs at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, another member of the network based in Israel, said her school currently collaborates extensively with just one American institution, the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business. Erez said Technion’s alumni typically enter high-technology industries, and that the school could approach business matters from a scientific angle within a global network.

“Israel has a very good model for technological innovation and entrepreneurship,” Erez said. “I’m sure that other countries have other strengths that they can bring into the network — each participant should introduce their strengths or their perspectives or their resources.”

Both Selva and Erez said the “network” model of international partnerships will prove mutually beneficial to all schools involved.

Though Selva said the Yale brand has been instrumental in establishing the network, he said the organization will weight all schools equally and pursue a “more comprehensive perspective of sharing and collaboration” than seen at standard bilateral or trilateral business school partnerships.

As for better known institutions, Snyder has recruited INSEAD — a business school with campuses in Singapore, France and the United Arab Emirates — and several others to the network.

INSEAD has a “long history” of collaboration with international business schools and will help guide a network of less experienced members, Dean Dipak Jain said in an email Monday. He added that the school’s diverse faculty and student body, which represents more than 80 countries, will be another asset to the group.

Further details on the network will be revealed at launch events in New York and New Haven in April.