Human Resource Management

Author: Zhao Shuming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: This book selects 13 human resource management cases, all carefully chosen from the Harvard Business School case library. Each case is self-contained, unique in its own way, and covers all aspects of human resource management. Every case in the book is a gem. The problems described in the cases immerse readers in the successes and failures of these companies, as if they were experiencing them firsthand.
When it comes to MBA education methods and case teaching, it has always been a focal point of debate. What position should case education hold? What proportion of each course should it occupy? How can the effectiveness of case teaching be improved? How should the relationship between case teaching and professional knowledge teaching be handled? Recently, when I attended the 2005 Annual Meeting of the China Association for Management Modernization in Beijing, a large group of deans from renowned management schools across the country engaged in a heated discussion on this topic. In the end, of course, the conclusion remained ambiguous. I believe that even from the birthplace of modern business education—the United States—questions still persist. Modern business education was first born at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. In 1881, a businessman named Joseph Wharton sponsored the establishment of the first undergraduate major in business administration at the university. In 1900, Dartmouth College became the first institution in the United States to award a master's degree in business. Subsequently, in 1908, Harvard University launched the first program called the Master of Business Administration (MBA). Initially, not only did business administration programs fail to gain social recognition, but there was also no consensus on what teaching methods should be adopted for business education. Interestingly, the early proponents of university business education were often economists, psychologists, sociologists, and others who lacked firsthand business knowledge and experience. Joseph Wharton's sponsorship of the undergraduate management education at the University of Pennsylvania was also due to his belief that the "learning by doing" method prevalent in American economics departments was not conducive to cultivating qualified business managers. At Harvard Business School, including its first Dean, Edwin Gay, among the four founding members, were scholars who lacked business experience. In the early institutions, there were already two different views on how to run the schools. Harvard advocated an education method based on general business management skills training, with a focus on cultivating managers' management capabilities. Meanwhile, the University of Pennsylvania advocated an education method based on imparting specialized management and operational knowledge for specific industries, with a focus on cultivating professional and functional management knowledge. Soon, Harvard Business School adopted the case judgment analysis method commonly used in legal education and developed a teaching method centered on case analysis. At the same time, institutions like the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Stanford, although they did not elevate case teaching to the same level as Harvard, extensively used case teaching in their teaching processes. Until the 1950s, case teaching, as a teaching method that realistically described management scenarios, explored management experiences, and learned to formulate management decisions, was warmly welcomed by students. However, the success of business education did not hide the failure of business academic research. People did not summarize and find more management theories from the cases. Undoubtedly, if management is only taught as a vague experience similar to folk wisdom, it cannot guarantee the long-term development of business schools.