PRESIDENT¡¯S
MESSAGE
Dear Deans, Members and Schools,
We are
looking forward to seeing all of you at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University
this May for the 2019 Academic Conference. Since one of the themes of the
conference is the qualities of business management in Japan, I¡¯d like to talk
about the present situation of Japan¡¯s business and management education.
Recruiters
and HR professionals from the Japanese corporate world often say that they
don¡¯t rely on colleges and universities for professional training and
education. They¡¯ll also state that their companies possess systems and skills
to improve their human capital. Japanese society had a common understanding
that colleges and universities
should focus on liberal arts education and leave professional education to the
business world. Some people even said that university education was not
particularly useful.
Recently
in Japan, however, people regard training outside of the office as important,
although on-the-job training remains vital. In addition, the corporate world
has started paying attention to off-the-job training, too. They expect implicit
knowledge from OJT and explicit and more organized knowledge from off-the-job
training. This is one of the reasons that Japanese professionals attend
business school.
Those
who study at business school in Japan have no anticipation of being provided
better positions and salaries after getting their degree. The business world
here does not give their employees the opportunity to advance to higher
positions and benefits simply because of an MBA degree from a prominent school.
Professional degree-holders have no intention to move to another job, either. They want to establish a network among other professionals and to have more
organized knowledge for the development of the company they are supposed to
remain with for a rather long time.
Japanese
business school students usually choose to attend business school for the above
reasons. Therefore, what they learn is not necessarily pragmatic. A few Japanese
business schools even provide academic social science and philosophy courses as
part of their curricula.
On the
other hand, Henry Mintzberg said that Japanese corporations have various measures
for training managers, such as planned job rotation, mentoring, monitoring, and
encouraging employees to enter off-the-job programs. Japan¡¯s companies operate
efficient management education, paying attention to career management and even
action learning. Those companies are seen as an ideal corporate business
school.
Generally
speaking, it¡¯s a fact that in terms of business and management education, Japanese business schools are not considered as significant as the business
world itself.
I hope
we can deepen our discussion on the features of business and management in
Japan at the 2019 Academic Conference here on the APU campus.
Best
Regards,
Prof. Kenji YOKOYAMA, PhD.
President, AAPBS
Vice-President and Executive Dean, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University
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