Exploration on the Reform of New Business Talents Training Mode in Application-Oriented Universities ()
1. Introduction
With the development of new science, mankind has created new fields of knowledge and brought many technological breakthroughs, such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Blockchain, Genetic Gngineering, Virtual Technology, 5G technology, etc. The change of lifestyle and value concept would have a profound impact and completely reform the future business model. According to research from McKinsey, it is expected that by 2030, 400 million to 800 million people worldwide will be replaced by automation, which is equivalent to one-fifth of today’s global workforce. At present, smart finance and financial technology have emerged, and commercial enterprises are gradually promoting digitalization and intelligence. Technologies such as Big Data, Cloud Computing, and RPA have been widely used in enterprise operation and management, and AI and Blockchain technologies are gradually advancing.
From an enterprise perspective, intelligent processes reduced low-end data processing, customer service and other labor positions, while increasing the demand for high-end management consulting, value analysis, investment decision-making, and budget decision-making. However, from the perspective of universities, some practical courses such as accounting, finance, marketing and other majors still remain in traditional manual bookkeeping, simulated transactions and other low-end business operations, which could not meet the employment needs of enterprises.
In the context of the digital economy and the era of intelligence, China’s higher education has set off a new wave of reform, and then new concepts such as “new engineering”, “new agricultural science”, and “new liberal arts” have been proposed. This paper focuses on how application-oriented universities develop economic and management education under the new liberal arts concept, how to integrate new technologies into business courses, how to break down disciplinary barriers, and how to form internal correlation between business professional knowledge and technology such as big data and artificial intelligence to provide students with comprehensive interdisciplinary education with new ideas, new models and new methods. The main deficiency of this paper is that the survey on the demand for business talents is focused on the perspective of “Collaborative Education Mechanism of Government, Industry and Universities for Economics and Management Majors under the Background of New Liberal Arts”. This paper only analyzes the survey results without a separate validity test for stationarity, and this paper does not involve the analysis of factors affecting the demand for business talents1.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: 2. Literature review; 3. Demand characteristics of new business talents; 4. The orientation and principles of new business talents training; 5. New business talents training mode reform; 6. Conclusion.
2. Literature Review
Through teaching and research, scholars have bridged the gap between education theory and talent teaching practices, promoted the refinement of advanced teaching experience.
Early research mainly focused on business curriculum, practical teaching methods, and talent training orientation. For example, Hubbard (2007) believes that the development of business administration education is to meet the needs of the ever-changing business environment. Business schools are not only limited to teaching students skills in marketing, finance, management, etc., but also strive to bring students to the real world and real business environment. This requires business schools to establish good partnership with industry to provide students with opportunities to learn. Bohanon (2008) examined business education in American universities from 1900 to 1930, focusing on issues such as curriculum, enterprise, business schools, social responsibilities, and business curriculum integration, and drew inspiration from early American business administration education experiences: both practical and humanistic education are necessary components of the business administration curriculum. Tang (2006) pointed out that local business colleges should take applied talents cultivating as the talent training goal, and deliver high-quality applied senior specialized talents for local economic construction and social development, and innovative applied talents training mode is the realization of applied talents. As the core project of talents training goals, local universities should actively explore new ways of closely integrating school education with social and corporate education. Chen and Yan (2017) conducted a study on the integration of entrepreneurs education and professional education in finance and economics universities and believed that business departments should attach importance to the cultivation of entrepreneurial talents. Actively encouraging teachers and students to carry out “technical-entrepreneurial practice” and “micro-entrepreneurial practice on campus”, to guide more students to “learn by doing”; at the same time using “inviting extra-school elites into the classroom”, together with “open classroom system on campus”, to promote a positive interaction between inside and outside education.
Recent years, more research has begun to focus on the specific paths of business talent training. Dong (2012) pointed out that the talent training model in universities is designed by the training subject in order to achieve specific talent training goals, under the guidance of certain educational concepts and the guarantee of a certain training system. It consists of method, teaching system, teaching organization form, implicit curriculum form, teaching management mode and educational evaluation method. Fan et al. (2020) pointed out that universities follow the guiding ideology of “improving the classification and training system of academic talents and applied talents in higher education”, based on cross-major teaching, inter-disciplinary cooperation, and cross-regional exchanges, implement production and education integration, science and education integration, and dual education to cultivate high-quality management talents with innovative spirit and practical ability.
With the construction of the “new business”, some scholars conducted a more in-depth discussion on the training mode of new business talents. Qi et al. (2019) compared the characteristics of traditional business and new business under the background of artificial intelligence, and proposed six ways to improve the existing business education model. Xuan and Yan (2020) proposed a new model of “teaching” and “learning” based on “interdisciplinary” knowledge system, online and offline teaching model, and resource sharing method based on the integration of production and education. Zhang (2021) built a new business talents training model based on the curriculum and ability structure as “business + technology + thinking”, and ensured talent training by establishing a “control-feedback-valuation-improvement” system. Chen et al. (2021) found that business in the new era should be a comprehensive discipline that integrates management technology, in-depth collaboration between production and education. Universities should focus on promoting the transformation of business talents training systems and training models, importance should be shifted from function-oriented to practice-oriented, to improve students’ logical analysis ability, organization and coordination ability, professional and technical ability and personal comprehensive quality in practice.
With “new business” concept being proposed in year 2019, more importance has been attached to the future development of business education. However, the concept of “new business” has not reached a consensus in a broad sense yet. Further discussion is needed on how to achieve differentiated new business talent training based on the advantages of application-oriented universities. This paper provides a reference for the reform of the training mode of digital and intelligent business talents under the background of new business for application-oriented universities.
3. Needs Analysis of Business Talents
To understand the ability requirement for business talents in the new era and provide a reference for the reform of business talents training system and training mode, this paper designs a questionnaire with the theme of “New Business Talent Demand Survey”. Taking finance, commerce and trade, and the Internet industries as samples, this questionnaire is aimed at employers who have a demand for business talents. Three aspects are focused to understand the characteristics of current enterprises’ demand for business talents.
3.1. Research Questions
The purpose of the study is to explore the current status of companies’ preferences for employees engaged in economic and management related businesses, and the differences between companies’ expectations and actual values of business talents. Therefore, the main research questions are as follows:
1) What is the preference of enterprises for business talents?
This question includes many aspects, such as, what capabilities do the business talents supposed to have? How does a company comprehensively evaluate business talents? Which aspects do enterprises expect universities to focus on in talents training, knowledge, skills, or professional quality? By analyzing the feedback of enterprises’ preference for business talents in the questionnaires, the study would like to provide clearer answers to these questions.
2) Are there differences between the expected value and the actual value of business talents?
By comparing actual ratings of business employees with expected preference ratings, the study attempts to identify the link between university training and enterprise feedback preferences.
3.2. Research Object
With the digitalization of enterprises and the transformation of industrial intelligence, digitalized business talents in the new era are urgently needed. A questionnaire with the theme of “New Business Talent Demand Survey” is designed for the study, which investigates the demand for business talents in the new era, and the results of the survey will provide reference for the reform of the business talent training system and training model. The industries with the most jobs for graduates majoring in economics and management are finance, commerce, and the internet. Therefore, the research objects of this study are enterprises, graduates and undergraduates of economics and management.
We distributed 100 questionnaires through the school’s alumni association, and 82 were recovered. 300 questionnaires were distributed to undergraduates majored in economics and management in local colleges. 300 questionnaires are distributed to undergraduates majored in economics and management in local colleges and universities, and 274 questionnaires are recovered. In addition, we conducted on-site surveys on managers of business and human resources departments of 30 companies, distributed 80 questionnaires, and 66 are recovered. A total of 422 questionnaires were recovered, with a recovery rate of 82.7%. About 70% of the surveyed companies have less than 1000 employees, of which 57.6% are in the financial industry, 28.3% in the commerce and trade industry, 10.8% in the Internet industry, and 3.3% in other industries.
3.3. Research Methods and Processes
This study adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Quantitative research mainly obtains data through questionnaires, and then analyzes it through SPSS 23.0 software to get the results. Qualitative research includes an early written survey that asks business managers to write about their feedback preferences and reasons, and a later interview.
The specific research process of this study is as follows:
1) Literature study. A literature study is conducted to find out the feedback preferences of cultural enterprises and the main factors that may influence these preferences. Eight practice base companies of Beijing Institute of Petrochemical Technology are surveyed2, preferences and reasons for business talents are investigated and factors that affect feedback preferences are identified
2) Draft of the questionnaire. Based on the literature and survey results, the first draft of the questionnaire was developed. Before designing the questionnaire, the content of the questionnaire was preliminarily formulated through interviews with senior business education teachers, partner companies, heads of employers. In the first draft of the questionnaire, more attention was paid to the factors that have an impact on the company’s feedback preference.
3) Final form of the questionnaire. A pilot study was then carried out in a small field, and 5 corporate executives and 30 students majored in international economics and trade were selected as subjects. According to the feedback, the questionnaire is adjusted in terms of content, numbers of questions and pertinence. The results from the pilot study were analyzed with SPSS, and it was found that some factors were not significantly correlated with companies’ preference, therefore, we adjusted concerning questions and finally get the final draft of the questionnaire.
3.4. Analysis of Survey Results
Table 1 shows that in the overall evaluation of business talents by enterprises, “Leadership/Action Ability” and “Sense of Responsibility” ranked first and second respectively; in the professional evaluation of business talents, “Business Data Analysis” “ and “Intelligent Business Decision-making” ranked the top two,
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Table 1. Evaluation indicators and employers’ weights for business talents
surpassing “Business Law” and “Business English”, indicating that employers generally believe that the digital economy era needs to introduce digital and intelligent business talents; in the ability evaluation of business graduates, Employers value “Good Communication and Presentation Skills” and “Good Teamwork and Service Awareness” mostly, therefore, comprehensive quality is more valued and competitive than professional skills.
The expected value evaluation results for the specific requirements of professional knowledge, ability and quality of business talents are shown in Table 2, among which, the demand value (A) is the evaluation of the expected value of the employer. The higher the value, the more important the item is supposed by
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Table 2. Employers’ needs and evaluation of knowledge, ability and quality of business talents.
the employer; the evaluation value (B) is the satisfaction evaluation of employer’s specific requirements for the existing business employees of the unit; the difference value (B-A) shows the deficiencies of the existing business employees in terms of professional knowledge, ability and quality.
3.5. The New Demand of Enterprises for Business Talents
It can be seen from the survey results that the demand for business talents in the new era has three characteristics:
Firstly, new business talents should master data analysis and decision-making techniques. Data analysis is the core of commercial enterprises. Universities need to meet the needs of enterprises and cultivate advanced digital and intelligent talents who can use data management thinking, judge and filter data, and use data analysis tools to provide managers with professional decision-making. New business talents must have a composite knowledge structure of “management + data technology”, and can become data experts in the senior management team after five years’ graduation.
Secondly, new business talents should have the ability to innovate and start a business. The scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation in the new era are driving the development of jobs towards complexity, diversity and comprehensiveness. In order to cope with the increasingly complex work, the training of new business talents should focus on the multi-angle integration of innovative thinking, entrepreneurial ability and professional technology.
Thirdly, new business talents should have moral quality and professional ethics. Over-professional business education is easy to develop interest thinking, which is not conducive to students’ moral cultivation and social responsibility. Therefore, the cultivation of new business talents should focus on strengthening the cultivation of students’ humanistic quality, improving students’ sense of morality and social responsibility, and enhancing students’ emotional management, strengthening resistance and communication skills in complex environments.
4. The Orientation and Principles of New Business Talents Training Model in Application-Oriented Universities
4.1. Reform of “New Business” Talents Training Model
Emerging technologies are increasingly becoming a strategic element of national development, and innovation is becoming a new driving force for economic development. Industrial structure upgrading, economic and social changes through technological innovation are all depend on the timely reform and promotion of educational form. In June 2016, the New Engineering Education Transformation initiative is proposed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, aiming to provide world-leading engineering courses for undergraduates (Xiao, 2019). In 2017, Shiram College in the United States took the lead in proposing the concept of “new liberal arts”, which is defined largely by professional reorganization (Fan, 2019). Boundaries of different majors are break down and comprehensive interdisciplinary learning is supposed to be conducted. In October 2018, the “Six Excellence and One Top-notch” plan 2.0 is implemented by the Ministry of Education of China decided to comprehensively promote the construction of new engineering, new liberal arts, new medical and new agricultural sciences (Fan et al., 2020). The integration of disciplines has correspondingly driven close integrations of modern technologies and production practices, which is the action of higher education to actively meet a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, and promote industrial upgrading or achieve iterative leaps through integration and innovation.
“New business” is a new concept for economic and management education under the concept of new liberal arts. Based on the existing business development, in response to the new challenges brought by technology, society and economy, the traditional business disciplines are restructured, with new technologies integrated into business courses, and new concepts, new models and new methods used to provide students with comprehensive interdisciplinary education.
Business education and business market economy are inextricably linked. In 1881, the University of Pennsylvania established the Wharton School of Business, which set a precedent for university business education (Cao, 2021). For more than 100 years, the business department has been following social and economic development, with constantly adjustments and changes. In the era of digital economy, business forms and business models have undergone tremendous changes, and new business talents are in urgently needs. It is necessary to further break down the barriers of disciplines and majors, promote the in-depth integration of economic management majors, and integrate modern information technology to empower business education to cultivation new business talents.
4.2. The Orientation of Talent Training
Application-oriented universities generally take high-level application-oriented talents as the training goal and serve the needs of local economic development, emphasizing practical teaching, application ability training and applied research. The training of high-level applied talents is a compound quality training in which “knowledge-ability” is inter-embedded and “learning-practice” is inter-integrated, requiring practical rationality and practical wisdom in the structure of professional knowledge, therefore, the training task of such applied universities is to provide students with diversified learning activities and practical opportunities, to enable students to acquire professional awareness and critical thinking, and continuously constructing meaningful and innovative learning.
4.3. Principles in the Training of New Business Talents
There is no separate business category in current China’s subject classification system, and business subject is mainly concentrated in the business management discipline under the management category, and some of business subjects are in categories as economics, such as international economics and trade, finance, etc. The cultivation of business talents in application-oriented colleges and universities should actively respond to technological innovation and business model changes in the mode of integration of “economic management + technology”, and abide by the following talent cultivation principles in the training mode reform:
1) Humanities education
An excellent manager and business leader must include the noble character, the development of human nature, the soundness of personality and the fullness and happiness of personal life. As a business-majored student, professional quality and ability are important, but ideological quality and moral quality are of the same importance. Though the market economy promotes sense of competition, efficiency, and innovation, it may also induce egoism, money worship, and selfishness, especially in the field of business talents cultivating, since businesspeople deal more with commodities and currencies. However, business education is not just about cultivating tool talents, but also including sense development of social responsibilities.
The rapid innovation and mediation of new technologies represented by the internet not only innovated the ways of understanding the world, but more importantly, changed “people” themselves, including lifestyles, ways of thinking, survival experience, living environment, aesthetic experience, cultural situation, etc. therefore, when discussing the training mode of new business talents, it is necessary to realize that humanistic attributes are the essential attributes of new business subjects. The cultivation of scientific and technological thinking in higher education is closely connected with the understanding and thinking of issues concerned with “people”, such as people’s perceptive and people’s value.
2) Industry universality
The training of new business talents in the application-oriented undergraduate universities should set up majors according to the industry, and its knowledge structure should have the general applicability with unique personality of the industry. By offering some basic subject courses and professional basic courses, students are enabled to master the basic principles of experience and management in the industry, grasp the general laws and principles of the industry, and be able to work in different companies in the industry. Students are required to grasp some special rules of the industry, handle some special affairs of the industry, and be competent for different positions in the industry. The cultivation of business talents should not blindly pursue the integrity and systematisms of the knowledge system but build a knowledge system according to the latest requirements of industry development, so that students would not only master considerable theoretical knowledge, but also develop strong adaptability.
3) Practice and innovation
The new business subject pays attention to social development and faces the future. The training of new business talents should follow the development of new business. It should not only meet the needs of the business people to grasp the theoretical system of knowledge, but also form a relationship between the content of business courses and business practices. The corresponding relationship enables students to use scientific theories and methods to conduct comprehensive analysis in practice, formulate solutions to problems, and put them into practice. The cultivation of new business talents in application-oriented colleges and universities not only includes the teaching of professional knowledge and skills, but also the cultivation of innovative technologies. It is necessary to focus on the multi-angle integration of innovative thinking, entrepreneurial ability and professional technology, so that students are not only proficient in business professional knowledge, but also familiar with industry technology.
4) Social engagement
The social nature of business talents training in application-oriented universities is mainly reflected in two aspects: Firstly, business talents are directly oriented to business, mainly engaged in business operations, and directly serve economic and social development, therefore, business talents should have stronger skills. Secondly, the cultivation of new business talents not only requires the joint participation of enterprises, governments, and other social departments, but also makes full and effective use of social resources to realize the interaction between school and society, and the interaction between academia and industry.
5. Training Mode Reform of New Business Talents in Application-Oriented Universities
In the era of digital economy and intelligence, the all-round development is the key to business education. The reform of the new business talent training model is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
1) Breaking down professional barriers
Economic and social progress and the development of industry characteristics urgently need to set up new interdisciplinary disciplines. The first is to build a public cross-discipline platform, break down the barriers between computer science and technology, mathematics, statistics, economics, and management disciplines, and realize integration between data science and economics and management majors. The second is to promote cross-college and cross-industry faculty alliances, establish cross-category and cross-field professional construction teams, collaborate, and share high-quality resources, and set up big data marketing, business data analysis, big data management and application, financial technology, intelligent accounting, big data majors or directions such as data and organizational behavior. The third is to carry out in-depth school-enterprise cooperation, establish practice bases, and accelerate the transformation of teachers and students’ knowledge into abilities based on the actual business and specific projects of the company.
2) Reconstructing digital intelligence courses
Reconstructing the curriculum and ability structure system of “business + technology + thinking”, taking the financial technology major as an example, the digital and intelligent curriculum system is shown in Figure 1. Through digital and intelligent technology, applied universities can develop many new courses that integrate science and arts, science, engineering, agriculture, and medicine according to their own advantages and regional economic characteristics. For example, through the integration of business and science, new courses such as information management, digital finance, and digital marketing could be offered; through the integration of business and engineering, courses such as new media, online education, machine ethics, and manufacturing ethics could be offered; through the integration of business and medicine, health management, bioethics, etc. could be offered; through the integration of business and agricultural sciences, courses such as genetically modified ethics and food economy could
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Figure 1. Example of a digital-intelligence curriculum system for financial technology majors.
be offered; through the integration of business and humanities or other social sciences, courses in quantitative history, management philosophy, psycholinguistics, traditional culture and leadership could be offered. With the combined knowledge of humanities, business administration and economics, this cross-integrated curriculum gives graduates a distinct advantage in the global labor market.
3) Improving practical teaching system
The new whole-process teaching system for the cultivation of application and innovation capabilities is established in application-oriented universities, as shown in Figure 2. In the process of training new business talents, we divide the training of practical ability into basic practice teaching stage, professional practice teaching stage, innovation practice stage, promotion and expansion stage, and each stage corresponds to corresponding courses or practical modules. At the same time, different stages of practical ability training should correspond to different levels and different driving methods of ability training, with the application and innovation ability as the orientation, and the spiral upward as the realization path. The new business practice teaching system respects the law of student growth and talent development, and realizes the transformation of the talent training model from knowledge education to creativity education. The construction of an ecological chain structure composed of innovation education and entrepreneurship education in an application-oriented university is the most effective way to cultivate business talents with new qualities of innovation and entrepreneurship.
4) Deepening the integration of production and education
The school-enterprise collaboration aims to exercise students’ practical ability, and cultivate students’ communication, coordination, innovation, and practical ability by building a talent training base.
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Figure 2. Example of the new business practice teaching system.
Firstly, moving classroom into the enterprise, and taking the education mode as entrepreneurial mentors leading and the management group teaching. The case teaching is applied to stimulate students’ creative thinking, improve their judgment and analysis ability, promote their decision-making, coordination, presentation and problem-solving skills.
Secondly, setting up business entrepreneurship courses, relying on the university’s industry-specific majors and subject directions, gradually cultivate students’ entrepreneurial awareness, allow students to continuously discover and solve problems in entrepreneurial practice activities, hence to deepen students’ professional knowledge, to develop and improve students’ knowledge application, innovative thinking ability and teamwork spirit.
Thirdly, provide internship opportunities to enable students to enter the work-place in advance, to accumulate professional experience, to adapt to the real working environment, and to reserve the professional ability of innovation and entrepreneurship.
5) Strengthening the construction of teaching staff
Business is an applied discipline with strong practicality. New business talents must keep up with the development of the economy and society, understand the latest economic and management information, and get in touch with the most cutting-edge economic and management activities. To meet this requirement, teachers must first enter the society, intervene in business management activities, establish close ties with enterprises, and go deep into enterprises through consulting, serving as business consultants, to apply what they have learned and to broaden their horizons, and bring the practical management problems into classrooms in a timely manner, and bring students into enterprises. On the other hand, in the context of economic globalization, the cultivation of business talents in applied undergraduate colleges should not only adhere to the local awareness and domestic situations, but also have an international perspective, be able to integrate into the world, participate in international competition. When introducing and cultivating teachers, we should pay attention to the requirements of “dual-backgrounds, dual-quality, and dual-language”, which indicating that teachers should preferably have experience in studying abroad, be able to conduct both theoretical teaching and practical guidance and be able to introduce high-quality foreign courses and conduct bilingual teaching.
6) Reforming talent training evaluation system
Application-oriented undergraduate education started late in China, and it is a type of higher education in exploration. At present, there is no well-established special teaching evaluation system suitable for application-oriented universities. Firstly, the new quality concept of business talents must be established in teaching evaluation of new business talents training in application-oriented colleges and universities. The teaching quality standard should focus more on the comprehensive knowledge, ability and quality ability, quality training of students to comprehensively assess the overall quality of students. Secondly, it is necessary to implement the outcome-oriented teaching quality evaluation method, using various forms of evaluation, such as course papers, research reports, research reports, enterprise planning plans, etc., to guide students to continuously improve their practical and innovative ability. Thirdly, the construction of the quality standard system for talent training should be strengthened. following the OBE education concept and building a closed-loop system for evaluation and improvement of the quality assurance system and work system, improving the integration level of internal and external needs of the major, training objectives, graduation requirements, and curriculum objectives, providing primary principles for professional setting, professional construction and teaching quality evaluation, and building and improving a new talent training evaluation and monitoring system consistent with the training needs of new business talents.
6. Conclusion
The transformation of business intelligence based on has subverted the traditional business model and challenged the demand for business talents. The continuous optimization and innovation of business talents training concepts and training models have become an irresistible trend of the era. Facing the needs of industry talents, cultivating business talents in the new era has become a common topic in the industry and education fields.
As the main institutions serving the local development of talent training, application-oriented universities should actively respond to changes in industry market demand brought about by technological changes, adjust talents training models and systems in a timely manner, and cultivate new business talents with professional knowledge, professional skills, as well as innovative thinking and management.
Supporting Subjects
1) Four-new-construction projects of “Undergraduate Teaching Reform and Innovation Project” of Beijing Higher Education in 2021: Innovation and Practice of the Collaborative Education System of Industry-University-Research for Applied Economics and Management Majors under the Background of New Liberal Arts(YZ22-103);
2) Key Project of Education Reform of Beijing Institute of Petrochemical Technology: Innovation and Practice of Industry-University-Research Collaborative Education System for Applied Economics and Management Majors under the Background of New Liberal Arts (ZD20200401);
3) Education Reform Project of Beijing Institute of Petrochemical Technology: Research and Practice on Talent Training System of “Cross-Boundary Integration” for Applied Undergraduate Economics and Management Majors under the New Liberal Arts Background (YB202204002).
NOTES
*Corresponding author.
1UNESCO describes business as “commercial and business administration”, in this article, we refer to business as “commercial and business administration” for short.
2Eight practice base companies of Beijing Institute of Petrochemical Technology are Zhejiang Hexin Tonghuashun Network Information Co., Ltd., Bank of Hangzhou Co., Ltd., Xindao Technology Co., Ltd., CSC Securities Co., Ltd., Guosen Securities Co., Ltd., Huike Education Technology Group Co., Ltd., Beijing Jiuqi Jinjian Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Hongji Information Technology Co., Ltd.