The special After School lecture series of the Yonsei School of Business that began in 2010 and is aimed at alumni continues to gather steam, offering two lectures in the first semester and attracting participation by more and more alumni.

»The 32^nd lecture, 4 April 2018: “The Direction of Organizational Innovation in the 21^st Century” by Emeritus Professor Se Cheol Oh

Organizations in the 21^st century should focus on three categories — ideology, theory, and methodology, according to Emeritus Professor Se Cheol Oh. In sharing his insights about his topic, Oh discussed the ideologies that dominated the 20^th century. And he said that 20th century ways of thinking remain prevalent in Korea despite the need for a fundamental change in thinking to cope with the demands of the 21st century. He suggested as a solution the embrace of proactive attitudes toward solving conflicts and contradictions as well as adopting cybernetic philosophies of democracy and an existentialist outlook.

He emphasized that in a theoretical point of view, organizations should avoid stiff and uniform structures. To be more specific, he emphasized that organizations should allow variety in thoughts, pursue an extensive breadth of knowledge, build horizontal networks, and avoid authoritarianism. Plus, he mentioned that a structure is needed in which everyone can be free from institutional regulations and pursue self-regulation. He also emphasized the cultural values of Eastern societies that he called superior to the capitalistic principles that originated in Western society and mentioned the need for craftsmanship, faith, and insight.

He closed his lecture by saying that the leaders of 21^st century should be worthy of the respect of others and share universal love.

» The 33^rd lecture, 20 June 2018: “The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Business Insights” by Professor Il Im

Professor Il Im of Information Systems defined the Fourth Industrial Revolution as a “‘change that happens with the combination of Information technology (IT) and other technologies.” He said that the development and scaling up of IT is very fast. He added that because it is easy to duplicate data run by IT technology, strategies of creating competitive advantage through cost reduction and differentiation are outmoded, replaced by products that use IT technologies to build strong network effects that lend themselves to natural monopolies and winner-takes-all effects.

He used autonomous cars as an example of a product that combines IT and other technologies. He closed his lecture by with the observation that the combination of IT technologies and traditional manufacturing add the value of information onto the already established physical value of existing products.