4 Best Organizational Leadership MBA Degree Programs in Japan for 2024

In 1989, with the goal of serving the needs of the industrial community, Kobe University founded the graduate school for practicing managers and professionals, the first establishment of its kind in Japan among government-owned universities. Prior to the school’s establishment, we organized a series of meetings attended by Human Resource Managers from diverse companies, together with selected members of our faculty, to devise a prototype for a new and innovative graduate school.

In 2010, the Graduate School of Business Administration starts a new curriculum, moving from the previous two-course system to a new five-course system in order to clarify study goals. The five courses are: 1) The “Academic Course”, to foster researchers, 2) The “Business Course”, to deepen both theoretical and practical knowledge of business administration, 3) The “Japan-China Joint Business Course”, specializing in Chinese business practices, 4) The “Business Course for Working People”, where businesspeople can develop their working experience through further study, and 5) The “Research Course for Working People”, to seek solutions to diverse problems that business people face at work. In the Graduate School of Business Administration, there are many professors with diverse business experience so students are able to find practical solutions to their day-to-day business problems as well as theoretical foundations for their business practices.

The Graduate School of Business Administration was established to cultivate scholars and professionals with outstanding theoretical and practical management skills as well as a deep understanding of management activities, mainly in the three domains of "people, money, and information." The School has developed the Education Model that fuses the U.S. and European-style rational business administration studies and education with Japan's cultural traditions. We strive for participation-based, high-quality practical learning with realistic content that reflects the skills of students who have diverse career backgrounds. The faculty includes corporate managers and other vastly experienced professionals, who employ teaching methods that emphasize the importance of case studies. To respond to wide-ranging needs in business administration, the School has established four courses: the Business Administration Course, the Contents and Marketing Course, the Medical Management Course, and the Tax Management Course. A chief feature of the School is its MBA program that combines Japan's cultural traditions with the development of individuality and creativity in students. The program provides an education that blends theory and practice by using as its base an abundance of case studies gathered from the perspectives of actual corporate managers. Reshaping the practical knowledge each student has acquired from their personal lives and jobs into academic theoretical systems while emphasizing the fundamental thinking and strategies of corporate management, students are able to raise their problem-solving expertise and practical skills as business leaders. While some students may continue their education in the doctoral course, this course provides comprehensive education and numerous research activities that nurture management professionals possessing comprehensive decision-making capabilities and foresight.

There are currently many businesses all around us including convenience stores, banks, automobile manufacturers, and transportation companies. It is no exaggeration to say that our daily lives would not be possible without them. In other words, it is the enterprises created by such businesses which enrich the lives of everyone in society. Business administration refers to the mechanisms by which businesses carry out their enterprises and to the measures they take for continued development and growth. The well-being of the people working for these businesses must also be ensured. It is this faculty’s goal to study the operation of business administration with a multi-faceted approach.