Strategic Management

Author: Xu Erming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: "Developing influential leaders worldwide" is the mission of Harvard Business School. Established in 1908, Harvard Business School fulfills this mission by implementing various programs that impact many different people. Harvard Business School is most famous for its MBA program, but we also pursue our mission through Executive Education Programs (including the AMP program and over 100 other training programs for professional managers) and through publications by Harvard Business School Press. Our publications include Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business School books, online courses, and Harvard Business School case studies. Providing advice to outstanding institutions is also an important aspect of our mission. Over the past 60 years, Harvard Business School has not only provided teaching cases to institutions around the world but also helped them and their faculty improve their case teaching capabilities through various programs. These include: the International Teacher Program (ITP), the Case Teaching and Participant-Centered Learning Method Training Program (CPCL), and the Case Teaching and Participant-Centered Learning Method Training Program (PCMPCL). Among them, the PCMPCL program was launched in August 2005, with the goal of helping leading business schools in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore enhance their ability to skillfully apply case teaching and heuristic teaching in MBA programs, executive education programs, and management practice-oriented research. Through years of practice, Harvard Business School has found that the application of case teaching typically goes through three stages. First stage, cases are used in management classrooms as examples or illustrations of concepts or principles. Second stage, case studies are used as the primary learning method, relying on case discussions. Third stage, faculty begin to widely apply their findings from case studies and curriculum development to teaching, in order to better understand and convey decision-making processes.
To fulfill our mission, Harvard Business School and Harvard Business School Press are delighted to partner with China Renmin University of Education to help Chinese business schools and their faculty bridge the gap from the second stage to the third stage. Our efforts include: providing a 10-day PCMPCL training program for faculty from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore; publishing a series of casebooks edited based on MBA core courses (in both Chinese and English versions); organizing a series of follow-up training programs on case teaching and case writing; and establishing a case study service center for Chinese faculty.
The purpose of our efforts has two aspects, both closely tied to Harvard Business School's mission. One purpose is to promote the improvement of global management education by helping educational institutions—just like those we have found in China—develop their own case teaching capabilities focused on management practice. The other purpose is to help these institutions cultivate teachers who can lead their schools, enabling them to write new case studies and teaching materials that can be shared with the world. Case studies that meet international standards while also being relevant to China's specific management practices are exactly what Chinese management education institutions urgently need.
We are delighted that China Renmin University of Education and many outstanding business schools in China have joined our team. We hope that the publication of Harvard case studies in China will benefit Chinese educational institutions, faculty, and the future managers they cultivate, helping them realize their dream of playing a significant role in the global economy.