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470

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admin

Date

2019-04-25

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3,633

Subject

AAPBS President's Message APRIL
attached file : Presidential_Message_April.docx

PRESIDENTS 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,

Id like to talk about the present situation of Japans business and management education.

 

Recruiters and HR professionals from the Japanese corporate world often say that they dont rely on colleges and universities for professional training and education. 

Theyll 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. 

Japans 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, its 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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