| Hitotsubashi University began in 1875 when Arinori Mori founded a private school, Shoho Koshujo (the Institute for Business Training), in Owari-cho, in Tokyo's Ginza district. With assistance from Eiichi Shibusawa, Takashi Masuda, Tetsunosuke Tomita, and Genichiro Fukuchi, prominent members of the Tokyo business world, all agreed that the cultivation of businesspeople armed with knowledge and a critical mind was an urgent task.
Shoho refers to the methods or techniques of commerce. At the time of the school’s inception, the focus was on the three principles of “penmanship, paper based calculations, and reading.” Early on, and together with bookkeeping, commercial products, English, and business mathematics, such subjects as political economic science, and business history were also studied.
The Institute for Business Training underwent several name changes, from Commercial High School (1887) to Tokyo Business University (1920), and then after the Second World War, it took its present name of Hitotsubashi University in 1949. In 1930, following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the main campus also moved from Kanda Hitotsubashi where it had been since 1885, to its current location in Kunitachi.
The current MBA Program has its roots in the Management Master’s Program established in 1996. In 2000, the School of Commerce and Management reformed its organizational structure and system to become The Graduate School of Commerce and Management. The school used this opportunity to enhance the curriculum and clarify course objectives in accordance with its mission of cultivating “Captains of Industry” with highly specialized knowledge and abilities. Today’s MBA program continues the traditions of the Institute for Business Training, emphasizing the teaching of modern business methods and taking on a wider and more comprehensive business perspective. |
