Organisation profile

The Department was established in 1955 as the Department of Industrial and Business Management (IBM) at the Taiwan Provincial College of Engineering, which had then become the Taiwan Provincial Cheng Kung University in 1956. The College of Business was founded later in the same year. The Department of IBM has belonged to the College of Business since then. In the initial stage, the courses offered by the Department were strongly related to a standard curriculum of mechanical engineering. For meeting the educational requirements, in 1965 the Department was subdivided into the Industrial Management Division and the Business Administration Division. The Industrial Management Division focused on the knowledge of mechanical engineering and quantitative management, whereas the Business Administration Division initiated additional courses focused on the strengths of qualitative management. In August 1971, the University was renamed as the National Cheng Kung University. One year later, the original two divisions were further separated and became the Business Administration Department and the Industrial Management Department, respectively. The Industrial Management Department started its undergraduate program in 1973 and then was renamed as the Industrial Management Science Department after one year. As the objective of the Department was to provide managerial personnel with engineering skills, students enrolled should possess good understanding of mathematics and science. Accordingly, the Department has been listed in the Natural Science Section in the Joint Entrance Examination of Universities since 1974. A doctoral program was eventually initiated in 1991, followed by a master’s degree program specifically designed for working professionals one decade later. To help meet the increasing demands placing on it, the Department was expended to attract teachers and researchers in information management and promote the collaboration between its original strengths. Correspondingly, the Department was renamed as the Department of Industrial and Information Management in 2003.