Dean's New Year Message for 2025

New Year's Greetings from Hitotsubashi ICS!

From Emi Osono, Dean and Professor

Dear ICS friends and family,

I hope this message finds you well at the start of this new year, 2025.

In 2024, we have witnessed significant improvements in generative AI. Moreover, these improvements, made in a short time, have been used effectively on various occasions. It is clear that generative AI will be a part of our lives going forward. We must monitor the use of generative AI, noting the positive impacts and identifying any negative side effects. Taking into consideration the growing role of generative AI, we have added digital and technology management courses to the MBA curriculum.

Even with the pervasive use of generative AI, we believe three other elements are critical to our future success: (1) Motivation; (2) collaboration; and (3) imagination.

• Motivation drives our actions (i.e., specifically, the intrinsic motivation of individuals, and the core purpose of companies).
• Collaboration enables us to embrace our differences and simultaneously facilitates the creation of viable solutions for our increasingly complex reality.
• Imagination helps us to empathize with others' feelings and better understand the complexity of our reality.

Accordingly, the MBA program is putting greater emphasis on these three key elements in the course content. We will continue to increase opportunities for immersive experiences and reflection.

As an institution, Hitotsubashi University has always recognized the importance of undertaking academic research and making those research results available to the larger community. In 2025, we have decided to refocus our activities around the theory of knowledge creation, proposed by Professors Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi in the 1990s. I'm very pleased to announce that The Dean's Guest Speaker Series will begin with Professor Hirotaka Takeuchi, our founding Dean, on Wednesday, January 22nd (18:30-20:00 JST, online). The next guest speaker will be Professor Patrick Reinmoeller of IMD on Tuesday, February 18th (18:30-20:00 JST, online).

As a business school, our core purpose is leadership development. We are staunchly committed to cultivating future leaders who will be able to effectively lead in situations characterized by complexity, for the betterment of society. Another priority is creating social impact. We will maintain our commitment to both leadership development and social impact as we work to fulfill our mission of achieving "The Best of Two Worlds," by providing students with a unique educational experience that combines the strengths of both Eastern and Western business practices. Amid the current climate of divisiveness, the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy (ICS) is strengthening efforts to serve as a bridge linking Japan to Asia and the globe.

ICS believes that a diverse faculty is the key to providing a global-oriented business education program. In 2024, ICS welcomed two new faculty members. Associate Professor Sung-Chul Noh teaches two courses for MBA students (Organizational Behavior I and Leadership and Career in Japan), and a course on qualitative research methods for the DBA students. He also teaches a course on Human Resource Management with Professor Hiroshi Ono during Global Network Week in March. Assistant Professor Youyung Hyun teaches two courses (Management of Technology and Topics on Data Analytics) for the MBA students. In 2025, ICS will be hiring two additional faculty members in the areas of strategy/entrepreneurship, leadership/organizational behavior, and knowledge management. ICS is happy to be welcoming new visiting faculty members, Kimihisa Kittaka (Industry Transformation), Miki Iwamura (Topics in Marketing I), Yasu Hatakeyama (M&A), and Koichi Tamura (Wise Leadership). We are so excited to work with them. We will continue increasing the diversity of our faculty, as this will lead to richer learning opportunities for our students and full-time faculty.

Finally, I would like to express my wholehearted gratitude to our adjunct faculty members and partner organizations, our full-time faculty, and our administrative staff. Although ICS has a relatively small student body and faculty, the scope of our activities is broad. ICS is a proud community builder, with a global orientation. We have cultivated relationships with an extensive network of overseas business schools. Let's work together to reduce divisiveness and create a better future.

Best wishes to all of you in this new year - the Year of the Snake.

Prof. Emi Osono
Dean, Hitotsubashi ICS
Hitotsubashi University Business School,
School of International Corporate Strategy