Global Citizenship Course of MBA at Hitotsubashi University
ICS , Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy
[Term 4] Global Citizenship (OK Baji / H. Kawada) (2009/Term 3&4 (Spring&Summer))
This is a course intended to (a) address the societal responsibility of firms in today’s global business environment, (b) give students experience working with human capital issues confronting today’s society, and (c) encourage students to develop and execute a plan of action for disabled children.
Peter Drucker pointed out that the primary role of companies in the 21st century will be to solve social problems, not economic problems. Companies will increasingly be asked to eradicate poverty, crime, hunger, disease, ignorance, discrimination, injustice, racial tensions, and other social problems. As the mission of our program is to develop leaders capable of initiating, managing, and implementing innovation on a global scale, this course plays a critical role in shaping the core values of our future leaders.
Students will have first-hand experience interfacing with the homeless, mentally disabled children, volunteer workers, etc. Students will be asked to stretch their minds and formulate ideas for making this world a better place for all humankind.
Course Structure
The course is structured so as to give students as much first-hand experience with human capital issues as possible. It has three components.
The first component exposes students to those suffering from poverty, hunger, illness, physical disability, mental disability, and other problems. These people are often shunned by society and treated as sub-human, partly due to ignorance and discrimination.
The second component enables students to interact with “activists” who will be invited to speak on the economic “divide” that separates prosperous countries from the less prosperous, as well as on the social “divide” that separates the “have-nots” from the “haves.”
The third component consists of actual interactions with the “have-nots,” which will take up the bulk of the time for the course. Although the course is scheduled for Wednesday afternoons, we will be spending weekends with the homeless, mentally disabled children, and under-privileged children. Their schedules do not permit us to conduct the sessions on Wednesday afternoons.
Teaching Method
This course is primarily field-based. “Seeing is believing” and “learning by doing” are the basic assumptions behind the course. Many of the sessions will take place outside the classroom. Some will take the form of an overnight trip during a weekend, or an engagement on a Saturday or a Sunday.
In addition, the course will make ample use of video tapes and other visual aids to show where the problems are and what is being done about them.
Another important component of the teaching methodology is self-reflection. Students should keep a diary about what they have learned from their experiences. At the end of the course, each student will be asked to verbally present his or her biggest personal take-away from the experiences.