Signature courses
Hitotsubashi ICS teaches at the frontiers of business education. And through an integrated set of signature courses, we develop each individual student with a degree of personalization unmatched anywhere. Set in among the core MBA courses, these signature courses challenge our 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 a two-day team-building program just outside Tokyo, orientation sessions back in the Hitotsubashi ICS classroom cover lots of useful topics: academic affairs, student life, career development, readiness for learning and leading, living in Tokyo (one of the world’s most liveable big cities!), staying healthy, 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 Hitotsubashi 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 Hitotsubashi 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. Hitotsubashi ICS students are avid travelers for GNW, with more than 90% participating each year, and returning back to Tokyo even more inspired and connected. Our own “GNW Tokyo” has been one of the top three most sought-after programs in the GN since 2014. Each spring, GNW Tokyo introduces 60 students from 20 schools to the unique innovation and globalization challenges facing Japan. |
| 06 | Get leading: Wise Leadership |
In alignment with Hitotsubashi ICS' intellectual tradition in knowledge creation, this course integrates key dimensions of every business professional's leadership development. Across multiple terms in the first year of study, and through varied forms of interaction both inside the classroom and out, three modules support your understanding and practice of leadership, your ability to recognize ethical challenges, and your capacity to engage with social and environmental challenges facing society. |
| 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. You’ll compete in the rapidly changing automobile industry, where customer needs evolve, new products are introduced, and the economic environment changes. |
| 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 - Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo. About ten students from each partner school (Peking University, Seoul National University, and Hitotsubashi ICS) study, travel, and network together for 16 days. Offered at the end of the first year of study, DBiA gives you different test fields and contexts for the analytical skills you build during the year. |
