AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF FACULTY PERFORMANCE AND PERSPECTIVES IN JAPANESE BUSINESS SCHOOLS

179 | P a g e J u n e , 2 0 1 3 AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF FACULTY PERFORMANCE AND PERSPECTIVES IN JAPANESE BUSINESS SCHOOLS Christine Amaldas, Avinash Shankaranarayanan, Kiminori Gemba Graduate School of Technology Management, Ritsumeikan University, Japan dollgirl08@gmail.com Aries Greenergie Enterprise (P) Ltd, India avigrid@gmail.com Graduate School of Technology Management, Ritsumeikan University, Japan gemba@mot.ritsumei.ac.jp


INTRODUCTION
Education is considered as one of the most important developmental issues facing Asiatic countries. The youth of these countries are dependent on education as their future resources towards development of their respective societies. Management education obtained major attention and big budgets from all walks of life as an artificial scenario created to

INTRODUCTION
Education is considered as one of the most important developmental issues facing Asiatic countries. The youth of these countries are dependent on education as their future resources towards development of their respective societies. Management education obtained major attention and big budgets from all walks of life as an artificial scenario created to make education available to every individual's requirements and beliefs towards societal development through economic incentives. Utilizing this so called 'management based educational system', students and professionals were expected to develop themselves to ensure their future along with the future of their families and their surrounding societies. In conjunction to such an aspiration, it is believed that management studies related to students' academic excellence and professional achievements utilizes a process of systematic teaching systems imposing numerous examples from relevant business experiences. Numerous experts have very recently raised several concerns about the current state of management research and pedagogy (e.g., Porter & McKibbin, 1988;Leavitt, 1989;Hambrick, 1994;Mintzberg & Gosling, 2002;Pfeffer & Fong, 2002) focusing on the lack of confluence of management research on so called management "best practices" and the lack of effectiveness of management education on performance of business students in the industries and the academia (Ghoshal, 2005: 76). Ghosal (2005), in the article raises a very different concern by arguing that academic research related to conducting business and management has had some very significant and negative influences on management. These influences have been less at the level of adoption of a particular theory and more at the incorporation, within the worldview of managers, of a set of ideas and assumptions that have come to dominate much of management research. More specifically, he suggested that by propagating ideologically inspired amoral theories, business schools have actively freed their students from any sense of moral responsibility (Ghoshal,op. cit.: 76). Supporting research and evidences (Hambrick, 1994;Mintzberg & Gosling, 2002;Pfeffer & Fong, 2002) indicate that the mastery of business concepts by students lead them into business pathways taking them to the next level but miserably failing to teach them moralities and ethical values. The ultimate goal must be to go from the pretence of knowledge to the substance of knowledge with respect to teaching business concepts. This is not going to be easy as the nature of the academic process naturally favours building on the existing edifice of theory instead of starting over, on fresh ground (Ghoshal,op. cit.: 81). Business mechanisms assume that people can behave opportunistically and draws its conclusions for managing people based on that assumption can induce managerial actions that are likely to enhance opportunistic behaviour among people (Ghoshal & Moran, 1996). Ultimately, if the trend in management theory is to be reversed, only business school academics can do so. Another theory by (Osterloh & Frey, 2003), draws on the prescriptions of corporate governance on the assumption that managers cannot be trusted making managers less trustworthy. Due to this, many ideas and initiatives (such as the use of Six Sigma in businesses) have been generated to improve the quality of the management processes, thus, ensuring the quality of the teaching and learning processes (at least in management based education) to be competent within the context of research and development and its findings with respect to the industry. In terms of policy making, all educational policy makers must plan various strategies besides providing sufficient learning facilities (technological infrastructures) and trained academics (faculty support) within institutions equally.
This study was carried out utilizing the interaction survey method with in-depth personal interviews comprising of open ended questions with 250 international academics (participants consisting of both Japanese and Foreign teaching personnel) chosen for this study located in Japan. The instruments used in the study were specifically developed to encompass all tasks and duties based on teaching specifications utilizing the Management of Technology (MOT) framework used at the department of Business and Management Studies and the department of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Specific elements explored were factors influencing MOT adoption and usage in teaching environments including: Gender, Skillset, Age, Class Handling, Teaching Experience and Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation levels such as Competitiveness, Popularity of students, Passing Rates, Job Satisfaction, Teaching Interests and Workload. The discussions in this paper focus on the factors that influence the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation levels in international tenured academics and contractual teaching staff in Management and Business departments with respect to the adoption of MOT related methodologies. A set of hypotheses were defined to test the variety of variables needed to deduce the relationship between teaching and adoption of MOT as a framework.
This research implies that the job performance of the international academics strongly depends on various motivational levels with respect to their roles as international teaching staff that were inter-connected to each other. The introduction serves as an example of current teaching standards in the business domains being presently deployed in various international institutions; Section 2 relates to the review of literature discussing about the penetration of MOT as a framework, digital technologies and ICT related services responsible for the management and training of business students who are absorbed into the industries with this know-how (tacit knowledge); Section 3 defines the research question, objectives and significance of the study; Penultimate Section defines the hypotheses related to the variables tested for correctness in this study; the rest of the paper: (i) statistically explores the realms of MOT influence and adoption in various streams of teaching in various departments; (ii) provides the verification of primary and secondary data collected using the instruments defined; (iii) and the findings, limitations, delimitations and the conclusion of the study.

LITERATURE
It is every academic administrator's responsibility towards improving the quality of teaching and learning in tertiary institutions globally and across their society. Research and academic "Think Tanks" such as the Academy of Management, TERI, Stanford, Harvard, etc., need to strategize mechanisms to instigate researchers and academics in the business domains to rethink their roles with respect to societal development. While the leaders of the Academy have duly expressed their concerns about the corporate scandals, they can do much more to create a new intellectual agenda that would support James Coleman's (1992) vision of the social sciences providing actual help in what he described as "the rational reconstruction of society." Martin Seligman, through his actions in the American Psychological Association, has already shown what some of these actions can be (Ghoshal,op. cit.: 89). In this context, the tertiary institutions dealing with educating students in Management and Technology Infrastructure (MTI) development is responsible for implementing various educational support programs especially to inculcate the use and integration of educational technologies amongst academics and students to improve the effectiveness of the teaching and learning processes incorporated in business education. There are numerous claims that academic programs with respect to business and entrepreneurship education do not adequately prepare graduates for the "real world". Harvard Business Review for instance published an article on the subject as far back as 30 years ago (Livingston, 1971), later instigating several articles to publish on the topic since then, each offering different criticisms and recommendations (e.g., Dertouzos, Lester, & Solow, 1989;Porter, 1980 Kanz and Lam (1996), takes the role of defining MOT using a more practical viewpoint as simplistic societal levelling linking the underlying use of technologies working together with people to achieve systematic methods towards applying knowledge in order to produce goods and services. Tabbada (2000), takes on higher tier of academic perspective defining MOT as an educational research tool fabricated to manage the technology components of individual product life cycles, capitalize on process technology to gain competitive advantage, and integrate product and process technologies. In this paper, MOT is defined as an educational framework that is utilized in engineering, science and management departments towards knowledge acquisition for the effective standardization and delivery of industry recognized courses as the core components in tertiary institutions. Utilizing this framework, the researcher intends to provide the necessary framework for the educational intuitions and multinational organizations to gain competitive training advantages towards attaining desired levels of growth and performance on its students and future employees.
Motivation at the workplace is determined by three principles namely, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and basic psychological need (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). Motivation refers to action, direction, intensity and behavioural persistence (Gordon et al., 1983). The Two-Factor theory explored by (Herzberg, 1968(Herzberg, , 1966 puts stress on the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations levels wherein psychologists indicate that intrinsic motivation is the direct result relationship between employees and their work which is usually self-instigating. Extrinsic motivation is formed based on the external environment of the workplace usually controlled by several variables directly or indirectly by several levels of stakeholders. The relationship between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation levels indicates that when both results of intrinsic and extrinsic are attractive, it will contribute positively to the motivation levels of the individual. In this context, career planning is directly affected by the employee's motivation levels that are influenced by his or her work environment (Holden, 1990(Holden, , 1991. Employees, amongst others, are influenced by several factors, like environment and ecology, perception, memory, cognitive development, emotion, behaviour and personality (Huitt, 2001). Rewards especially, can stimulate motivation and generate the actions required to do an activity (Enabou & Tirole, 2003). At the same time, emotional and material support enable staff to become more committed (Brandt, 1995) in doing an activity. Besides that, good and close relationships between staff also influence the commitment within staff (Nordin, 1997). In relation to that, trainings given to teaching staff also improves commitment and job performance within them (Sahandri, 1998;2008). Good communication in organizations also encourage job satisfaction, job performance and job commitment and these can be considered as assets in an organization (Sharifah & Balan, 2001).

PROBLEM STATEMENT
The paper looks directly at the motivational levels of international academic staff and the intensity at which they are comfortable in adopting and utilizing MOT framework in their teaching and curriculum development. Hence, the research question is formulated based on the field work undertaken as follows:

"Does the adoption of MOT as a framework have any effect on the motivation levels of international academics in management related departments?"
To answer this question the following assumptions and objectives are formulated in the following sections.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
This study has been undertaken to: (1) examine the extent to which selected departments and groups of classes are engaged in MOT based teaching delivery; (2) determine the significance of MOT in promoting knowledge acquisition and industry exposure based growth; (3) analyze the critical factors for success of the students at the industry level; (4) assess the problems faced by small enterprises in managing technology related to job training; and (5) formulate recommendations for institutions and industry linkages towards the adoption and effective utilization of MOT based educational mechanisms. This paper is specifically linked to:


Find out the MOT based motivation and training awareness amongst International and Local academics or teaching staff in management departments and tertiary institutions.  Defining whether or not there is a significant relationship between work motivation and its academic staff and their performance within the selected institution.
 Analyzing the work flow performance of Academics and its associative staff members.

METHODOLOGY
In social research, countless number of methodologies can be employed towards primary and secondary data collection. This includes methods such as experimental research, survey research, ethnography, phenomenological research, grounded theory, heuristic inquiry, action research, discourse analysis, feminist standpoint research, and many others (Crotty, 1998: 5). However, research in the education domain tend to make use of a selection of common methodologies, namely Experiment, Survey, Case study, Grounded theory, Ethnography and Action research, each suiting specific studies.

Design of Study
The study design encompasses both quantitative and qualitative approaches. For the quantitative approach, the survey descriptive design is used. Descriptive research, also known as statistical research, describes data and characteristics about the population or phenomenon being studied. Descriptive research answers the questions who, what, where, when, why and how... by identifying exploration, description and explanation as the three purposes of social science research (Babbie, 1989). Descriptive research classifies phenomena by providing an illustration of a variable that is to be observed using statistical determiners to perceive the distribution, pole and the data tendency. Two sets of instruments were used here: (1) Instruments for tenured academics and contractual teaching staffs and (2) The academics response instruments for the implementation and usage of MOT as a framework. The quantitative variables measured in this study are demographic backgrounds, motivation levels, roles, personal factors and environmental factors which influence the respondents' motivation. The qualitative design is used to observe the data from the open ended questions determined through the interview process. This design will provide detailed information related to the studied phenomenon and is very suitable to obtain the real illustration related to the determined variables. Merriam, (1998) writes that external validity "is concerned with the extent to which the findings of one study can be applied to other situations". Unambiguously, the qualitative design will be used to achieve the concept building and comprehension (Merriam, 1997) which are very much needed to make evaluations and to give recommendations related to the motivational levels of academic staff. Any research into adoption of teaching mechanisms and measure is a very hard job for it must take into account numerous complex elements, such as the interpersonal relationship, the conventional ethical norms of the institution, the existing management hierarchy, the policy system, common practices and so on.

Hypotheses
The hypotheses are formulated as follows: "There is no significant difference in MOT based motivation and training awareness amongst the academics with respect to their Gender, Skillset, Age, Class Handling, Teaching Experience and Intrinsic and Extrinsic Work Motivational Factors." The hypotheses (Ho1 -Ho6) tests the six variables listed above with regards to the adoption of MOT based motivation and training with respect to staff of the selected institution.

Instruments used in the Study
The instruments of study consist of the Motivation Instrument and the Role of International academics in the adoption and usage of MOT and related technologies. The Motivation Instrument and the roles of international academics are discussed: demographic information, age, experience, position, salary and awards received and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation levels related to summarizing the roles of the respondents. Both of these parts will form the cumulative score to view the performance of the selected respondents. The undertaken research is the type that involves at least two areas: the academics (or teachers) and the adoption of best teaching practices. Having considered all possible aspects of the research, Surveys and Interviews are selected as the possible instruments for data collection. Statistical verification is done using "Multiple sources of evidence" as the point of referencing here which is considered as the most suitable approach for the validation of data from such a 'fieldwork' study. It has been decided that Interpretivism is the theoretical perspective that lies behind the methodology chosen here. Constructionism is the epistemological view that overwhelms the entire research based on the philosophy that "meanings are constructed by human beings as they engage with the world they are interpreting with" (adapted from Crotty, 1998: 43).
The respondents for the study include all tenured and contracted international teaching staff selected from the study site. The appropriate sample size for a population-based survey is determined largely by three factors: (a) the estimated prevalence of the variable of interestmotivation levels with respect to MOT as a framework in this instance; (b) the desired level of confidence and (c) the acceptable margin of error. For a survey design based on a simple random sample, the sample size required can be calculated according to the following formula: n = t² x p (1-p) / m² Where:  n = the required sample size;  t = confidence level at 95% (standard value of 1.96);  p = estimated prevalence of MOT adoption in the projected area;  m = margin of error at 5% (standard value of 0.05).
It has been estimated that roughly 20% (0.2) of the teaching staff have some idea of utilizing MOT framework and its related ICT technologies (inclusive of digital infrastructure access and digital technology usage) to enhance teaching observed from the selected respondents. This figure has been taken from previous studies by the researcher during assessment of staff internally (academic audit). Hence, the ideal sample size determined would be approximately 246 respondents. After considering the correction factor that is, n = n / (1 + n / N), the number calculated is 250. The choice of sample is made using the stratified random sampling method where the external validity of the study is high and the data generalization can be attained.
Many research methods such as observation, interviewing, conversation analysis, document analysis or life history can all be employed towards data gathering. However, in this research there is a stronger inclination towards qualitative methods than that of quantitative ones as the research is intended to explore as much of the subjects' view points as possible. In fact, a number of methods have been adopted to collect the data and information; namely observation, document analysis, interviewing and questionnaire answering. The comments made in the report are partly based on the observations and empirical experiences gained by the researchers in academic teaching. The analysis on the literature and the legislative documents are available at three levels: the policy level, administrative legislatures and the university. The rest of the data comes from the research surveys conducted during the term as an academic in the institutions using the techniques of interviews and questionnaires. The design aims to collect information for the investigation towards the adoption of MOT in teaching and curriculum development as well as implementation of recommended policies. The similarities are noticeable in the content where the selection of participants is made randomly within each faculty based on their inclination to divulge information to aid the study. Moreover, all faculties in the university have their representatives to participate in the survey, so that an overall picture of 'MOT adoption' can be realized. Contractual teaching staff is found to be in the ages ranging between their mid or late thirties. Their working time length at the university is relatively short, ranging between a few months to 3 years. Most of them have a Bachelor's degree and half of them are attending a Master course towards fulfilling contractual obligations and teaching requirements. By policy, PhD students are not offered any teaching position in the selected Japanese institution as a norm and are utilized mostly as teaching aid or assistants. They are allocated specific roles and tasks to be executed and are always monitored by tenured or higher ranking managers.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
From the surveys and interviews conducted, the following observations were made pertaining to the institution under study. Every year a specific budget is allocated for the teaching and learning processes, increasing the hope that a better educational system can be benefited by all students in the selected Institution A. The survey instrument was pretested by the faculty at the authors' request from the Institution A selected for study. Based on this, a number of questions were reworded to improve clarity and to ensure that respondents' interpretation of the questions was consistent with the authors' intent. The final survey instrument was distributed electronically to 250 faculty members at Institution A in Japan.
The rationale for focusing on the business schools is that these schools are at the forefront of management education, and thus, these institutions would be among the more likely to be recognized the need to incorporate MOT and related technologies into their curricula.

Table 1. Survey of Faculty in the Selected Institution A
To obtain a data set representative of a cross-section of business disciplines, proportionate stratified sampling was used based on faculty disciplines as identified from Institution A's Faculty pages. Respondents were, however, asked to report their actual area of expertise during the survey conducted. A performance gap was observed between the students and staff at these departments which is still considered wide. This situation is caused by the lack of quality in the basic facilities of learning and the related teaching services which is still unsatisfactory. This can well be observed through the lack of course material updates; lack of teacher training and moderation; rigid rules and management problems; peer pressure and other issues. Hence, many academics admit that they lack the skills in teaching due to lack of support materials, limited guidance and staff training given. This situation should encourage policy makers to give more diligent attention in providing educational technologies (MOT related as it is the case here) related training and services to academics. It is intended that this will give direct influence through examination results and career opportunities. Besides directly providing MOT as a framework, staff and administrators are also responsible for ensuring the level of comprehension and Skillset of academics related to MOT by always updating themselves with the latest trends. In relation to this, the responsibilities and tasks that are needed to complete all tasks by administrators and their network of academic staff are perceived as being hectic with heavy workloads. Without the support of internal management and continuous motivation, whether intrinsically or extrinsically within the department, it is difficult for the goal to be realized. In addition to this, there are various issues that challenge the credibility and mental endurance of the administrators such as complaints of academics on the lack of opportunities of being exposed to the trainings of teaching support materials and the lack of demand from departments towards teaching support materials that are produced by their associated heads of managers. Strictly speaking, the success of implementing any management or technology based programs is an effort to ensure the quality of education depending fully on the effort and the initiative of the management and their staff. It is very important that the administrators of the organization obtain a complete illustration on the motivation levels of their academics be it intrinsic or extrinsic. All the factors leading to motivation needs to be explored and researched so that it can be manipulated to help improve the academics' motivations. In relation to this, the study is an initiative for exploration of some of those aspects, which later contribute meaningful data to the policy makers towards planning and decision making. Based on the field work spanning institutions in the Asiatic regions of Japan, all MIT and Business related department staff in their respective tertiary institutions were utilized towards data collection. The research work undertaken is based on a mixed mode approach where the collected data is analyzed using a triangulated verification methodology. The data collection methodology applied includes Personal Interviews, Surveys and Questionnaires employed during the author's involvement as a staff member in the respective institutions. The names of these institutions are not being disclosed here due to contractual obligations when undertaking this research. Hence, for simplicity the tertiary intuition (International University in Japan) here on will be referred to as Institution A.
Institution A, comprises of 250 respondents (134 permanent teaching staff and 116 contractual teaching staff as our respondents out of approximately 400 teaching staff) playing an important role in internationalizing the curriculum and bringing international university degree programs and related content to students in the selected departments. The institution is affiliated to the Ministry of Education in Japan and has its ties to numerous international University linkages such as Australia, Singapore, India, China and Malaysia inculcating international management perspectives and technological superiority. Thus, programs and activities of all Management related institutions depended a lot on commitment, work culture and satisfaction, competency, attitude and motivation of all its staff and students involved.
A total of 12 questions with Likert Scale were administered to all respondents. As pointed out in the methodology section of the paper, the list of questions has already been field-tested by other researchers in Japan. As all students at Institution A are assumed to be exposed to its MOT promotion curriculum and teaching, a positive rise in the use of IT would indicate that Institution A has indeed succeeded in its educational aims. The analysis of the field data was carried out to explicate the reasons for the lack of MOT acceptance and usage among staff and students. For analyzing the data, the 't-test' and one way ANOVA were used for evaluating the gathered data proving the stated hypotheses.

Hypotheses Testing
The formulated hypotheses (Ho1 to Ho6) were tested for MOT based Motivation and Training Awareness of Academics based on the following variables: Gender and Educational Qualification, Age, Class Handling, Teaching Experience and Intrinsic and Extrinsic Work Motivational Factors (Refer to their frequency distribution and cross tabulation in table 2a, b, and c). To test the Hypothesis Ho1 and Ho2 based on the testing variables: Gender and Educational Qualification (skill-set) the Means, Standard Deviations (SD) and p-values were calculated. From Table 3, the P-value was calculated as 0.006 which was found to be a significant difference between male and female academics in MOT based motivation and training awareness at 0.05 levels of significance. Hence, the null hypothesis is rejected.
From Table 3 based on testing variable Skill-set, the p-value was calculated as 0.317 which was found to be insignificant. Hence no significant difference between ICT and Social Science academics with respect to MOT based motivation and training awareness at 0.05 level of significance. Consequently, the null hypothesis Ho2 is accepted. To test hypothesis Ho3 (Variable Age), one way ANOVA was used for evaluation. The P-value was found to be 0.037 which is significant at 0.05 levels of significance. It indicates that there is a significant difference amongst the academics when MOT based motivation and training awareness is concerned with respect to their age. It indicates academics within the age groups of 25 -30 and 30 -35 years of age (m = 1.40) have greater MOT based motivation and training awareness compared to other age groups of academics: academics greater than 40 years (m = 1.35) and 35 -40 years (m = 1.35). The P-value (0.037) was found to be significant. Therefore, the null hypothesis Ho3 is rejected.
The reason for academics (between 25 -35 years) are having greater MOT based motivation and training awareness is because they attend special educational workshops, service-training, refresher and orientation courses conducted by third party trainers and institutional level linkages which facilitates their field experiences to gain wider MOT adoption. It is also debatable that these academics belong to a Generation X (Catalyst, 2012) series classification which makes them more inclined towards MOT training and susceptible to technology adoption than their predecessors.
To test hypothesis Ho4 based on Class Handling, one way ANOVA was used as shown in Table 3 Accounting and Finance (m = 1.38) and Information Management (m = 1.32), with the F-value (0.464) which is found to be significant. As a result, the null hypothesis Ho4 is rejected.

Table 3. Mean, SD, and T-values for the Variables Tested
To test hypothesis Ho5 based on Teaching Experiences, one way ANOVA was used. The P-value is found to be 1.231 which is insignificant at 0.05 levels. In conclusion, there is no significant difference in MOT based motivation and training awareness of academics with respect to teaching experience. Thus, the null hypothesis Ho5 is accepted.
Similarly, to test hypothesis Ho6 based on Intrinsic and Extrinsic Work Motivational Factors, one way ANOVA was used. The Mean, SD and F-value are given in Table 3. The P-value of 0.005 is found to be significant at 0.01 levels. It indicates that there is a significant difference among the academics having MOT based motivation and training awareness with regards to Intrinsic and Extrinsic work motivational factors. It indicates that intrinsically motivated academics (m = 1.31) have lesser MOT based motivation and training awareness compared to extrinsically motivated academics (m = 1.39) and N/A (m = 1.04) staff. The F-value of 0.52 is found to be significant and thus, the null hypothesis Ho6 is rejected.
Hence from the computed values of significance from Table 3, it can be assumed that there is a significant difference with respect to MOT based motivation and training with relevance to academics in the Japanese institution with respect to their Gender, Age, Subject Handling and Levels of Motivations towards MOT adoption and technological usage.

Limitations of the Study
Limitations identify potential weaknesses of the study. The following are some of the limitations faced by the study:  This study was undertaken at only one of the Japanese Institutions spanning various Management courses and departments.  The respondents of this study are focused on two specific groups namely: International academics (Tenured) and Contractual teaching staff. Thus, the generalization of study is limited to all the international academics in the selected institution where the researcher had worked previously.  Studies show that the extrinsic or outer factors do not show any relevance to extrinsic motivation.  Other institutions could have been compared but resource limitations, financing and time constraints played a bigger role in limiting the scope of the research.

CONCLUSION
Asiatic regions such as Japan with respect to international education still have scope for improving their adoption and utilization of technologies and content delivery in terms of technological development (Amaldas et al., 2012). The outcomes of MOT promotion at the selected site (Institution A) were observed in the field research as follows: (a) MOT promotion at Institution A was largely led by policy makers and key administrative officials.
(b) The faculty plays a subdued role with no responsibility for promotion of MOT as one of the key stakeholders of the University.
(c) MOT promotion does not reach all the students as surveyed separately by our previous research.
(d) MOT promotion policies are not coherent at Institution A; and therefore, are not adequately implemented to have the expected outcomes.
Evidently, much of the current MOT promotion policies were formulated during the planning years for the establishment of Institution A. As such, all the six courses that were made part of the curriculum were done with the purpose of complementing the overall learning at the University. They were never meant to turn out MOT experts for the industry. Once the policy makers had decided on the curriculum it is mainly implemented by the Academic Office, where the administrators were in a race against time to appoint enough lecturers (mainly contracted and part-time staff) to teach the overflowing classes of students. The curriculum of the six courses was largely determined by policy-makers in the early years, with the faculty trying to fulfill the broad descriptions given to each course in the course handbook. Thus, there has been very little coordination between what policy-makers had in mind to what was loosely implemented at the curriculum level.
It was also found that faculty passivity in the promotion of MOT is directly related to the staff recruitment policies of Institution A. As the University's policy makers had never intended to promote MOT as a specialist area in the curriculum, faculty recruitment was not fine-tuned to recruit industry and academic experts. Two tenured faculty and two contracted staff were seen as adequate in the initial years for simply teaching MOT as complementary subjects to content based courses. Eventually only one tenured faculty and two contracted staff with two additional part-time staff were used to manage the teaching of MOT subjects. Most language teaching faculty used only one program, the Web-CT for teaching. Despite the exclusion of faculty from policy making regarding MOT education, some of the faculty were concerned about the content of instruction and tried to write teaching aid materials for students. However, as they did not play an active role in the planning, they only thought about courses in the context of the classes they taught rather than curriculum reform for effective promotion of MOT education. The lack of leadership and initiatives did not allow the faculty to seriously question the content and complementary nature of MOT education at Institution A. The non-existence of coherent policies for the promotion of MOT is rather a worrying trend. In the two administrations that Institution A had undergone, none have attempted, so far, to bring together policy makers, administrators, faculty and students. Policy decisions on MOT promotion are transformed into curriculum based subjects by administrators, who themselves are not faculty members.
MOT is a process requiring a change in mindset and outlook shifting towards a more strategic mindset starting with the admissions process where there is need to improve and effectively manage technology at the policy level. Unfortunately, not all sectors of the economy would appreciate this reality with the same level of enthusiasm. High-performing enterprises and institutions would most likely rise up to the challenge and move along in accordance with the MOT framework with ease. Sadly, majority of our enterprises and institutions are still rigidly closed to the idea of changing and adapting to new paradigms which impair adoption of such frameworks at the policy level. On one hand, much work needs to be done and the pressure remains with the government to create the right environment for effective MOT adoption amongst all organizations. The challenge to academe, on the other hand, is to initiate curricular reforms that would address the MOT needs of Japan in this case. Meanwhile, businesses should be more open to collaboration where immediate monetary benefits may not be apparent and training along with international exposure from a university environment might be some sort of a luxury for its future employees.