Dean's Greetings

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

Firstly, I would like to appreciate all of your hard work over the past year. Unfortunately, we all had to go through some difficulties due to COVID-19; however, I believe, we all tried our best to continue our daily lives as normally as possible in the face of this challenge. There were times when we were exhausted physically, mentally and/or even spiritually, nevertheless, our families, friends, colleagues and co-workers who have worked together with us and for whom we work has made our work worthwhile.

Korea University Business School (KUBS) has had several activities over the past year. At first, besides the existing research centers such as Institute for Business Research & Education (IBRE), Asian Insitute of Corporate Governance and recently established research centers, Startup Institute (Station) and Center for Digital Transformation & Business (CDTB), KUBS also launched ESG Research Center in October. In regard to this project, our nine faculty members conducted intensive research related to ESG areas and published a book, "Social Value and Sustainability in Business" in December. We will keep continuing conducting rigorous research in the ESG field and also planning to introduce ESG-AMP Program by next year.

Secondly, KUBS Undergraduate Program introduced a new curriculum named as "Concentration Track" in May this year. This track focuses on three different areas, "Entrepreneurship and Innovation", "Business Analytics" and "Social Value and Sustainability in Business" which are integrated with the recently established research centers. Similarly, each research center organizes various contests where students have the opportunities to participate in teams and experience numerous extracurricular activities. Furthermore, KUBS aims to educate and nurture social leaders with the necessary character and competence that helps change the world into a better place. For this purpose, KUBS has recently updated the curriculums to enhance student's abilities such as being able to clearly grasp the nature of the problem, accurately communicate these problems into their own words and collaboratively converge to provide best solutions to these problems. These sorts of approaches have been already implemented on KUBS MBA programs.

Finally, we have put our enormous efforts to strengthen the soft power of the school. I believe, the ultimate purpose of corporation is to contribute for the betterment of one's life. Accordingly, only those who have the ability to predict early about making life even better in the near future are able to innovate through creativity which requires imagination for the future. Therefore, to support imaginative power we not only try to update our curriculum but also are planning to install various art works within the business school buildings.

In my opinion, corporate sustainability comes from the aspiration of those who seek innovations, those who wants to participate in collaborative endeavor and the desire of great achievements. Therefore, I am hoping the upcoming year, 2022 will be a very meaningful year as new researches will be conducted that will help in contributing to human aspirations and help us achieve our ultimate goals while new students will gain new opportunities to learn something meaningful through our institution.

I, once again appreciate all of your effort for the past year and I wish everyone to have a peaceful end of the year and the new year filled with things to be grateful for.

Johngseok Bae

Dean,

Korea University Business School