Interview with Hasung Jang, Dean of KUBS

Now is the time for universities to reach out to other countries. Our next goal is to foster global talent by creating an overseas campus and strengthening exchanges and cooperation.

Hasung Jang, the Dean of KUBS was a bit excited when he sat down for the interview. It was only natural of him considering that KUBS was ranked number one in Korea for ‘school to recommend’ in an Eduniversal— the global business school evaluation institution—survey of 1000 deans from business schools around the world. In addition, KUBS also came in at 1st place in the BK 21 survey carried out this year by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. Following last year, KUBS also ranked 1st in the 2009 Hankyung Business School Evaluation, in which HR managers from the top 200 Korean companies were surveyed. If this was soccer, KUBS just achieved a treble (3 victories).

Dean Jang shared his ambitions “If we continue at this speed, KUBS should easily become one of the world’s top 50 business schools by 2015. We would be among the top two schools in Asia. Our next goal is creating a new business school model in Asia which is becoming the hub of the global economy.”

Q: For two consecutive years, KUBS ranked 1st in a survey of HR managers from the top 200 Korean companies. Why do you think these managers have a high regard for KUBS graduates?
I think a large part has to do with the cultural aspects. Here I’m thinking of the unique academic tradition of Korea University. Korea University has greatly valued the sense of community from a very long time ago. We looked for ways for all of us to prosper together instead of solely focusing on our own individual successes. Naturally, we value networking. I think the companies gave us high scores based on these factors. Students who went abroad to study at a young age and went on to college are increasingly coming back to Korea and being readmitted to our school. They realize deeply that, even if you studied abroad, in order to survive in Korean society you need to quickly learn the elements of Korea.

Q: How would you describe KUBS’s status on the global stage?
 Just this week alone, we received three great news. While the Eduniversal ranking was an evaluation by my peers, deans from other business schools, the Hankyung Business survey result was significant in that it reflected the opinions of the companies who are the actual employers. So, I am more pleased. Up until now, universities were only focused on securing talent when the key role of a university is fostering excellent talent. What can be greater for a university than the market valuing the talent that it has produced? Yesterday I received an email from the Dean of the business school at Guanghua School of Management at Beijing University. He wanted us to find areas for mutual-cooperation such as credit transfers. This is one example of our enhanced status. Universities around the world want to sign a sister-school agreement with Beijing University. The fact that they reached out to us first is very meaningful. I’ve emphasized this many times but we are confident about our output (produced talent)

Q: The innovation of KUBS is amazing. Which areas are you focusing on?
Students, faculty and facilities are the key elements of a higher education. More than anything else, we make a great effort to select talented students. It’s quite exceptional for a college to individually hold a 2010 KUBS BBA Admission Presentation.
The second factor is faculty. During my term I recruited 40 professors. This doesn’t mean we’re only focused on increasing the number of faculty. Once we begged the university headquarters to allow us to recruit 12 professors but that year we ended up employing only three. More important than the number of faculty, is whether or not the professors meet our qualification standards. KUBS has the highest number of papers published in the top 20 journals. And of course, we have clear incentives in place. At KUBS, we have faculty members who have a higher annual salary than the Dean.
Third is facilities and following the Main Building and LG POSCO Building we are preparing to build the 3rd Business Hall. It will be as large as the LG POSCO Building in size. We plan to invest more than 40 billion won. If things go as planned, it should be completed in 2011. It will be another stunning piece of work.

Q: KUBS has been leading the globalization of business schools in Korea. What is the future direction for the school?
I look at the concept of globalization a bit differently. In the past when we assessed the globalization of schools we looked at the number of talent they sent abroad. However, KUBS is focused on how many foreign talent we can attract to our school. If a student goes abroad then only that student will be globalized. But if you attract foreign students to your school, you can globalize the entire campus. We plan to double the number of foreign faculty (as of November, 2009 there are nine).
These days I am interested in the Asian network. We must quickly respond to Asia’s emergence as the hub of the global economy. We are already operating a joint Asian MBA program with Fudan University and the National University of Singapore. I believe this has a lot to do with Beijing University reaching out to us. It is time for universities to collaborate. This thinking has led us to establish our business school at Fudan University. We plan to purchase two floors. One floor will be a dormitory and the other floor will become a research lab. All of this is for a global education. We already have a KU building at University of British Columbia in Canada.

Q: What is an Asian-style MBA?
 We are focusing on China and India. I guess it’s only natural for a business school to focus on areas that global companies are also focused on. Let’s compare talent to raw materials. Up until now, we have been sending our raw material to the US and Europe. The raw material would be processed there and sent back to Korea. In my opinion, this needs to end. On a national level this is a huge waste. Now universities must go abroad. Our goal is to foster global talent by creating campuses abroad and strengthening exchanges.

Q: Although fostering talent is important, I don’t think you can overlook securing talent?
Yes, of course. That is why, whenever we have a chance, we are asking the university headquarters to recruit a diverse range of students. In other words, let’s find unique talent from different regions. This way our students can become the mayors and county governors of the different provinces or CEO of mid-size companies. We should select students based on public education standards. Students should be able to go on to college even if they excel in only one subject, be it English or mathematics. If you want to be a lawyer specializing in business, you should receive education at a business school even if you finished law school. If there is one more thing I would like to see happen, is more attention being paid to attracting foreign students to Korea. In the past, talented students from Korea went to the US and Europe to learn new modern sciences. Now we should bring talented students from developing countries such as India, Bangladeshi, Indonesia and Cambodia and educate them at our schools.

Q: Top-notch students in Korea are coming to KUBS. Could you describe the type of talent KUBS aspires to attract?
 I believe our school should strive to foster talent but also future leaders of our society. What sort of qualities does a leader need? A leader should have a broad outlook, value the community, be considerate of others and understand Korea’s role in the world etc. In my class ‘Disciplined Management and Value Management in 21st Century’ I continuously ask students about the type of companies that create value. It’s not about working like a dog and spending like a king. You should work like a king and spend like a king. In order to do so you need team work. In other words, you need cooperation.
We’ve reduced the proportion of business related courses in the undergraduate program so that students can develop the ability to think expansively. We reduced the number of major-related compulsory courses while increasing the proportion of selective courses. For example, if you want to study marketing you should take not only microeconomics and sociology classes but also psychology courses.

[HanKyung Business, Nov 30, 2009]