Hitotsubashi ICS has developed long-term intellectual alliances with many leading companies in Japan. We are continually working on creating sponsorship and research alliances with businesses to help our students and partners better understand the institutional and cultural diversity of this region, and prepare them to lead in a global economy that will increasingly be dominated by Asia. At the same time, we are working on developing our thought leadership through promoting faculty research.
Although the Japanese economy as a whole has faced many problems over the last two decades, Japanese companies still remain an inspiration to companies around the world in quality, technology, and service. And Japanese companies today are on the forefront of solving problems that affect the entire world: including the environment, limited natural resources, and an aging population.
Alliances with Students
A perfect example of how leading companies benefit from student alliances is through our Field Study Program. Every year during the month of March, Hitotsubashi ICS students are given the opportunity to participate in a field study program with a wide variety of companies. This is a consulting type of project where four to six students as a group analyze real company issues and offer suggestions for improvements, usually in a final presentation to company executives. Project managers from the companies and ICS professors act as the supervisors of the projects, and many of the project outputs have been highly evaluated and thereafter implemented by the companies.
Alliances with Faculty
Our faculty members are at the forefront of business research not only in Japan, but across the globe. Many are highly successful authors, public speakers and researchers and those strengths culminate in our relationships with our corporate partners. Our faculty members have written popular books on some of our corporate partners, and that research is able to filter through to those companies themselves enabling them to push the envelope of their own research and bring those new innovations to their clients and consumers. We have many faculty members appointed to the board of directors for various companies in Japan and through those relationships companies benefit from the longstanding relationships we have with other companies and schools. Finally companies, through our faculty, are able to promote their message by acting as sponsors for interns, visiting our campus as guest speakers and participating in recruitment activities.
