Signature courses
Set in among the core MBA courses, these signature courses challenge the students to test their business skills in hand-on learning, to explore alternative business models and frameworks, to understand the integrative purpose of business in society, and to develop their own personal leadership philosophy.
| 01 | Get ready: Foundation Week |
Foundation Week is usually when new students first meet. After connective team-building, orientation sessions in the ICS classroom walk you through useful topics: academic affairs, student life, career development, readiness for learning and leading, living in Tokyo, IT-fit and emergency-ready, and preparing for your future job search. |
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| 02 | Get connected: The Seminar System |
Every MBA candidate joins a small (3-4 person) Seminar offered by a faculty member. Throughout the program, Seminars meet to discuss academics, career goals, life stages and more. Seminar faculty are not only academic advisors; they are coaches, mentors, and wellsprings of information about careers in Japanese and global business. And after graduation, Seminars remain a growing group of uniquely connected alumni. |
| 03 | Get in context: Japanese Business and Economy |
To begin your MBA journey, JBE takes you on a riveting tour of Japan’s past, present, and future. The story of Japan’s postwar recovery, its meteoric rise to wealth unprecedented in the region, its dedicated path to modernization - and today, its position as a global innovative force and thought leader - is one that ICS tells like no other. After experiencing JBE, you'll forever be in context in Japan. |
| 04 | Get innovating: Knowledge Management |
From the theory of knowledge creation, you’ll learn how the process of making tacit knowledge explicit can be applied to drive innovation. As the 21st century further advances the knowledge society, knowledge creation is ever more critical to the success and sustainability of firms, NPO/NGOs, and governments. We offer a focal point for research and dissemination in knowledge creation, pioneered by Ikujiro Nonaka, Professor Emeritus, Hitotsubashi University and scholar in residence at ICS. |
| 05 | Get networked: Global Network Week |
Through the Global Network for Advanced Management, you'll have access to these highly popular 1-week intensive courses offered in locations all over the world - Bangalore, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Madrid, New Haven and many more. Our own “GNW Hitotsubashi ICS Program” has been one of the top three most sought-after programs in the GNW since 2014. |
| 06 | Get leading: Wise Leadership |
In alignment with ICS’s intellectual tradition in knowledge creation, this course integrates key dimensions of global and social awareness with leadership development. Through varied forms of interaction both inside the classroom and out, this course builds your understanding and practice of the “why” of leadership and your engagement with social and environmental challenges. |
| 07 | Get strategic: Strategy Simulation Week |
In this fast-paced exercise, student teams role-play as a top management team running a company in StratSim, a web-based, interactive simulation program that extends across multiple business functions, ranging from strategy to marketing, to operations and human resources, to accounting and finance. |
| 08 | Get region-savvy: Doing Business in Asia |
Each year brings a new theme for this elective course surveying business practice in China, Korea and Japan, offered with our partners in the BEST Alliance. About ten students from each partner school (Peking University, Seoul National University, and Hitotsubashi ICS) study, travel, and network together for 16 days. |