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Dear AAPBS Members
The 2019 Academic Conference, which was held at APU from May 13th
to 15th, Beppu, finished successfully. We tried two new approaches for sessions
in the program. One was a mini jam session and the other a company visit. These
were new ways of exchanging ideas about business and management. It remains to
be seen, however, whether those pedagogy was efficient or inefficient as a
method of activating sessions in a conference or meeting. In this news letter,
I would like to focus on this pedagogical topic from the viewpoint of business
education.
A lot of business and management schools all over the world have started to
think about how they should educate their students. I understand the sources of
their education always lied on the business world, but I am afraid you cannot
find proper sources for the pedagogy of education. In this case, there are no
clues you find in the practical world any more. It is responsible for business
schools to attain something efficient from their own research and
consideration.
What comes to my mind first and foremost is the
curriculum for business education should be more or less interdisciplinary,
because the problems and issues you can find in your daily business activities
cannot be solved only through a single approach and perspective. The studentswho want to study real business must understand the fact that a
disciplinary approach will not take you anywhere. Some business schools have
launched a cap stone program in which students analyze a company from various
perspectives, like organizations, HR management, strategies, marketing, production,
accounting and marketing.
Second, gaining knowledge and skill from class work is not bad, but
experiencing is a better methodology without doubt for business education.
Business education must be useful for actual business activities in the real business
scene. For this, project-based learning and internship training have drawn much
attention.
Third, education for enhancing critical thinking, communication ability,
data analysis, multicultural ability will become crucial, now that leadership,
team building, ethical behavior and global environment are getting important.
What is required in that context is more like competence not hard skill sets
and knowledge any more.
In any conferences, meetings and business education
seminars, people have started talking about pedagogy for business education
here and there. Some have launched new methodologies, though there is news that some way has become efficient. However, each
school should experiment their own ways. Let’s exchange those success and
failure cases in the field of our academic conferences and annual meetings.
Professor Yokoyama Kenji, PhD
President, AAPBS
Vice-President & Executive Dean
Ritsumeikan APU
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