Korea’s first university-affiliated research center, Institute for Business Research & Education’s (IBRE, Director=Professor Chan Su Park) 60^th anniversary of the foundation has come. It has been a fundamental step to Korea University Business School’s development to one of the top note universities in the world.

Looking back through the history of IBRE, there have been two major stages of the center’s development. For the first 40 years, IBRE focused on institute-oriented research projects, education projects, publication, and held academic events as ‘IBRE-oriented period’. Since the mid-90s, ‘center-oriented period’, IBRE has focused on establishing research centers classified by majors, following a drift towards subdivision of business administration.
   
‘Business Research Focused Period’
IBRE commenced in 1958, 1st of June, it was an affiliated institution of the College of Commerce, Korea University. Within two years of its establishment, IBRE was grown to be a part of Korea University, and it performed a management efficiency assessment of ‘First City Bank of Korea’. IBRE first published ‘Korea University Business Journal’, which is the very first weekly business journal in Korea. In 1962, IBRE was in charge of cost accounting test on Cheil Industries Inc. and 2 other companies. It was the first cost accounting assessment performed by a university research institute in Korea.
 
In addition, IBRE contributed to the extension of the application of business administration to the Korean government and public sectors.
One of the examples is ACMS (Army Command Management System) performed from 1961 to 1963, which is the adoption of business administration to the military forces. Another example is a research on government administration requested by the Government’s Administrative Reform Committee in 1965. In addition to that, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry commissioned IBRE to create management indicators for small and medium-sized enterprises and conduct the first domestic per unit production cost inquiry. Since the mid-1980s, IBRE held academic conferences with renowned universities overseas, which promoted academic exchange in Korea and further.
 
At the same time, IBRE affirmed its position as the first and best university-affiliated institute by the publication of a range of journals in addition to KU Business Journal. IBRE issued ‘Business Monthly Newsletter’, as well as ‘Price Level Monthly Newsletter’ and ‘Business Research’ in 1964. IBRE also issued other types of publications: △The Completed Works of Business Administration △The Completed Works of Accounting △The Collection of Business Administration △A Compendium of Business Administration △Dictionary of Business Administration △A Series of Business Administration.

‘IBRE Sub-center Focused Period’
With the establishment of a Center for Asian Business Research in 1995, IBRE opened up its new era of the center-oriented development. IBRE commenced a variety of research centers to promote the specialization of each division in business administration.
 
In addition, IBRE developed to a key institute of academic-industrial cooperation by the commencement of corporate training program. Designed for the success of a business’s goal and strategy, the corporate training program was first started ‘MBA Program at Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.’ in 1999. In 2017, IBRE started △RM Prestige Program at Shinhan Bank △SK Win-win Growth MBA Program △Global Leadership Course at CJ Cheil Jedang Corporation △Hi-Business School Program at Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance. On the other hand, IBRE continued its work on publication; from 2008 to 2013, IBRE issued an annual ‘Business Operation Way’ as a part of the collaboration with the Federation of Korean Industries.
 
The growth of IBRE is continuing, so as its attempts at new projects. In 2017, IBRE organized a research group – a smaller unit than the research center to best focus on the rapidly emerging areas of research. Examples include ‘Market-oriented Big Data and IoT Research Group’ and ‘Management Philosophy Research Group’ commenced in December 2017. IBRE aims to work on further establishments of research groups organized by the researchers’ areas of interest.