Management Education in Japan

Norio Kambayashi, Masaya Morita, Yoko Okabe

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781843342182
• eBook ISBN: 9781780632490
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The changing nature of education and training systems in Japanese firms is reviewed with focus on developments of management education in Japanese universities. Based on a contextual model, this book examines whether the MBA education system in the Japanese business schools is useful for human resource development in Japanese firms and discusses the importance of developments of Japanese-specific methods of management education. - New research topics: few studies focussing on Japanese management education - Systematic and critical review of the up-to-date literature on management education - Empirical evidence: interview data collected both from HR directors/managers and from employees who belongs to an MBA course

1

Business education and human resources development in Japan: issues and challenges

Publisher Summary

This chapter provides an overview of the book, Management Education in Japan. The book investigates, theoretically and empirically, the issues such as: (1) whether the Master of Business Administration (MBA) education programs offered by the business schools at the universities of Japan, which have emerged against the backdrop of the heightened interest in a professional orientation to business, are useful from the point of human resources development in Japanese companies; (2) their differences when compared to corporate universities; (3) if business schools are found to be useful, then what role they should play in human resources development at Japanese companies; and (4) the ideal form of MBA education for Japan, how it matches the context of Japanese companies, and how it differs from MBA education in the U.S. The book presents comparative studies of the business education systems of the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The ultimate goal of the book is to explore theoretically the role that business education, as offered by the Japanese universities, should play as an alternative form of human resources development to traditional On-the-Job Training (OJT), and additionally to offer specific recommendations based on these insights that would eventually lead to practical suggestions.

Business education and corporate human resources development

Reflecting the growing social interest in a professional orientation to business, business schools intended for adults (or non-traditional students) have emerged in rapid succession in Japan from the latter half of the 1990s to the present. In terms of adult MBA (master of business administration) education in Japan, most courses have been modelled on the US business schools, and in fact a vast number of adult graduate students have completed their MBAs, gone back to their respective companies and are playing prominent roles in their fields. However, recruiting officers at a number of Japanese companies have complained that many employees quit their jobs too soon after acquiring their MBAs, and some have even voiced the pessimistic opinion that MBAs are useless in Japanese companies.

Such dissatisfaction with the MBA programmes in Japan can be understood if seen in the context of the traditional forms of human resources development in the country, where on-the-job training (OJT) has been the main method of education; another factor is that MBA education in this country is still in its infancy, and an MBA education programme that is truly in tune with the needs of Japanese companies has yet to appear. It is undeniable that Japan is still at the stage where MBA education programmes are being imported directly from the USA and merely run on a trial basis. Indeed, several companies seem to have given up on this type of university-oriented MBA education altogether, which they see as something of a dead end, and are beginning to explore the possibility of forming their own corporate universities (un...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• CHANDOS ASIAN STUDIES SERIES: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES AND TRENDS
• Copyright
• List of figures and tables
• About the authors
• Acknowledgements
• List of acronyms
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Business education and human resources development in Japan: issues and challenges
• Chapter 2: What do Japanese companies look for in MBA holders?
• Chapter 3: Why do Japanese business people go to business schools in the USA?
• Chapter 4: Conclusion: Japanese style of management education
• References
• Further reading
• Index