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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. Keenly aware that MBA students from the “real” business world tend to have diverse work experiences and a perspective rather different from those with no practical work experience, we designed a Kobe Style business school based on a “Project System” for our MBA candidates, whereby students who share similar interests regarding various aspects of business form a group and seek to resolve problems through joint study. Core faculty members assume the role of both offering coursework and facilitating the process of group efforts. Our overall purpose may be summed up in our program’s name—Management Theory in Practice (MTP)—and in the original stated mission of Kobe University, “the fusion of academic insight and reality in practice.” It is this combination of the academic and the practical—how the understanding of theory might be used to improve society—that forms the firm foundation upon which our program stands.

As the first business administration school in Japan, The Graduate School of Business Administration holds an important position in academia and has a distinct history. Since its foundation, our philosophy has been “theory and practice should go together.” Under this philosophy, we seek to serve industries and society by making the research outcomes of management studies available. Open discussion and interactions between academia and business practitioners are encouraged.

We offer a Ph.D. course, an MBA course, and an undergraduate course, which allow students to pursue their own goals. In 2013, Strategic Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Alliance Management Initiatives (SESAMI) was introduced as an educational program to provide a more international environment for Master's and Ph.D. courses. In addition, we started international doctoral programs in collaboration with overseas universities (IDPs) in 2017. We have established global links with world-leading universities and developed student exchange programs. Kobe International Business Education and Research (KIBER) is one of our successful programs that allow undergraduate students to access global networks.