Business Education Trends in Japan and America

This chapter shares the author's academic and career experiences in Japan and America and its influence on his perception towards business education, specifically MBA programs, in America. By sharing his experience, he will compare the business education in Japan and America and its differing perception of entrepreneurism. Comparing these two countries would highlight the current obstacles and future improvement for business education. Compared to business education in Japan, business education in America emphasizes the importance of entrepreneurship within its curriculum.

Solving the Max-Diversity Orthogonal Regrouping Problem by an Integer Linear Programming Model and a GRASP/VND with Path-Relinking Approach

Students from Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs are usually split into teams. In light of the generalistic nature of MBA programs, diversity within every team is desirable in terms of gender, major, age and other criteria. Many schools rotate the teams at the beginning of every term so that each student works with a different set of peers during every term, thus training his or her adaptation skills and expanding the peer network. Achieving diverse teams while avoiding–or minimizing—the repetition of student pairs is a complex and time-consuming task for MBA Directors. We introduce the Max-Diversity Orthogonal Regrouping (MDOR) problem to manage the challenge of splitting a group of people into teams several times, pursuing the goals of high diversity and few repetitions. We propose a hybrid Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure/Variable Neighborhood Descent (GRASP/VND) heuristic combined with tabu search and path relinking for its resolution, as well as an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation. We compare both approaches through a set of real MBA cohorts, and the results show that, in all cases, the heuristic approach significantly outperforms the ILP and manually formed teams in terms of both diversity and repetition levels.

Comparing Entrepreneurial Spirit in job descriptions seeking business undergraduates and graduates

Employers hiring candidates with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) indicate that the Entrepreneurial Spirit (ES) concepts of teamwork, creativity, innovation and adaptability are important. This replication study examined the ES concepts most often appearing in job descriptions seeking to hire MBA candidates. These concepts were used to compare those ES concepts employers most often seek when hiring undergraduate business degree candidates. The literature review provides a background on the development of MBA programs, ES concepts and entrepreneurship education, how innovation is developed, and the perceived gap regarding the development of ES concepts between employers and MBA graduates. The study follows a quantitative content analysis methodology to compare two external datasets: undergraduate job descriptions and MBA job descriptions. The results show that the most desired ES concepts sought by companies were implementation, collaboration, and innovation. There was not a significant difference in ES concepts by job title category in job descriptions between undergraduate business degrees and job descriptions requiring an MBA. There was a significant difference in the concept of innovation. The findings suggest that the ES concept of innovation is more highly desired by companies seeking people with MBA degrees than by those seeking undergraduate business degree holders.

To keep or divest a division: Canon’s strategy in an oligopolistic market

The issue in this teaching case is the future of the Lithography Division of Canon. The case is situated in 2015 when this division represents around 7.5% of the company’s assets, 13.8% of its sales, and 10% of its capital expenditures. The division is loss-making. This issue is faced by two persons in the organization: the CEO and the CFO of Canon. The CEO would like to keep the division, while the CFO prefers to divest it. The case is particularly interesting because of the market structure: the division operates in the lithography market, which is a clear example of an oligopoly. The case can be used in Strategy, Technology, or Digital Business courses in MSc or MBA programs. The learning objectives of the case are (1) combining information provided via academic journals with facts from the case and the collective knowledge and creativity of a team of students, (2) analyzing the collected information and building a case with strong arguments, (3) creating a convincing strategic plan including a persuasive presentation, and (4) practicing the skills of presenting. The information provided in this case is based on the annual reports of Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography (ASML), Canon, and Nikon, and on other publicly available information on the lithography industry. The case itself is fictional. The authors are not aware of any discussions within Canon about the future of the company’s lithography division.

Editorial: business education in profound disruption

Purpose This editorial aims to discuss 11 trends that are driving changes in business education, especially for Master of Business Administration (MBA) curriculum programming. Design/methodology/approach The editorial provides introspection, personal reflections and conceptualization using current literature. Findings The authors discuss 11 drivers that are influencing graduate business education. These drivers include the demographic cliff, the K-shaped recovery, MBA degrees losing their allure, emergence of two pricing structures, the rise of online universities, certificates and micro-credentials, the massive open online course (MOOC) MBA programs, MOOCs and certification, Grow with Google, Outsourcing MBA instruction and business education relevancy. Research limitations/implications Traditional university and college graduate business education providers must realize that the educational industry is experiencing a revolutionary disruption and that many universities will fail to meet learners’ expectations for relevant skills and organizational demands for employees who have specific skills for employability. Practical implications Learners will no longer rely on traditional four-year universities to obtain business skills. Originality/value This work synthesizes a disparate set of drivers that are affecting all graduate business educational providers.

Pricing of higher education: The case of top-ranked MBA programs

Tuition fees of full-time MBA programs with similar structure can vary greatly from around USD $20,000 to USD $220,000. This paper explores the effects of post-graduation salary, reputation, and their interaction on such high discrepancy in MBA tuition. Using a unique dataset of international MBA programs, we found that program value is positively correlated with post-graduation salary. This relationship is stronger for more prestigious programs whose values are impacted more by graduate outcomes. In addition, this relationship is greater for North American programs, but smaller for European programs, suggesting a geographical effect. These results provide managerial implications for program administrators and universities offering professional business programs. These insights can be extended to other industries of intangible experience goods.

Business process management: from theory to practice

The textbook examines the theoretical foundations of business process management of a modern enterprise, presents a practical approach to the identification, classification of processes and implementation of process management, which can be applied in practice in the activities of organizations in the context of innovation and digital transformation of business. At the end of the chapters, there are questions, test and practical tasks for the purpose of self-control on the development of the material. Meets the requirements of the federal state educational standards of higher education of the latest generation. It is recommended for use by teachers, undergraduate and graduate students and students of MBA programs studying in economic disciplines, management and management activities, as well as specialists of economic, consulting, innovation, and planning departments of enterprises.