The School of Business Administration of Guangdong University of Finance and Economics (also known as the Cantonese Merchant School and the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship) traces its origins to the Department of Enterprise Management, established in 1983, and is one of the earliest schools and departments founded at the University. The School currently has 1,313 enrolled students, comprising 918 undergraduates and 395 postgraduates.

The School has a strong faculty of 78 staff members, including 66 full-time teachers. Of these full-time teachers, 60 hold doctoral degrees (90.9%); there are 15 professors and 26 associate professors, with senior-title teachers accounting for 68.3%; 22 have overseas experience (33.33%); and a further 19 are dual-qualified, dual-competence teachers. Many faculty members have been selected for the Ministry of Education's New Century Excellent Talents Support Programme, named Guangdong Provincial Outstanding Teachers in Higher Education, or recognised under the University's "Distinguished Teaching Master", "Nanling Scholar" Leading Talent and "Nanling Scholar" Outstanding Talent schemes. The School is home to a Guangdong provincial-level teaching team and a Guangdong provincial higher-education research and innovation team. Building on its strong faculty, distinctive disciplinary strengths and advantageous location, the School has achieved notable results in teaching, research, social service and talent cultivation.

In November 2008, the University established within the School of Business Administration an "Experimental Zone for Innovative Training of Economic and Management Talents with Entrepreneurial Spirit and Potential", which was designated a National Experimental Zone for Innovation in Talent Cultivation Models in 2009. In October 2012, building on this national experimental zone, the University founded the School of Entrepreneurship Education to take charge of university-wide entrepreneurship curricula, project development and entrepreneurial practice, as well as the day-to-day management of the national experimental zone. In April 2021, the School of Entrepreneurship Education was merged in its entirety into the School of Business Administration.

GDUFE launched its MBA programme in 2009 as one of the eighth batch of Chinese universities approved to offer MBA education, and remains the only finance-and-economics university in South China to offer an MBA. Attaching great importance to MBA education, the University set out the guiding principle of "mobilising the whole University to run the MBA well" and established an independently constituted MBA Education Centre in September 2009 to coordinate all MBA provision. In November 2018, the MBA School was founded and the MBA Education Centre was dissolved; in July 2021, the MBA School was renamed the Cantonese Merchant School / MBA School. In June 2022, in a major strategic move to better integrate disciplinary resources and further develop MBA education, the University merged the School of Business Administration with the Cantonese Merchant School to form the School of Business Administration / Cantonese Merchant School, and re-established the "MBA Education Centre". Since then, the MBA programme has rested on a more comprehensive disciplinary and faculty base, with a refined governance mechanism that has substantially strengthened its educational capacity.

On 24 September 2023, the School of Business Administration / Cantonese Merhant School / School of Entrepreneurship Education was renamed the School of Business Administration (Cantonese Merchant School, School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship), giving shape to the present three-in-one structure.

I. Disciplines and Programmes

(1) Undergraduate Programmes

The School offers three undergraduate programmes: Business Administration (Digital-Intelligent Management), Marketing (Digital-Intelligent Marketing) and Entrepreneurship Management. Business Administration and Marketing are both National First-Class Undergraduate Major Construction Sites, while Entrepreneurship Management was rated A+ in Shanghai-Ranking's 2026 Best Chinese Majors Ranking.

(2) Graduate Programmes

The School is authorised to award master's degrees in Business Administration as a first-level discipline and in Enterprise Management and Technological Economics and Management as second-level disciplines, as well as the professional Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree. In partnership with Audencia Business School (Nantes, France), it also runs a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) programme.

II. Talent Cultivation

Centred on the two themes of "strengthening distinctive features" and "pursuing high quality", the School emphasises substantive, innovation-driven development and continually consolidates the quality of talent cultivation.

· First-class courses: Retailing, Management and Management Operations Research are National First-Class Undergraduate Courses, while seven courses including Foundations of Entrepreneurship are provincial first-class courses.

· Practical teaching: The School has built provincial demonstration off-campus practice bases with partners such as the China Southern Talent Market and Walmart.

· Three signature activities: the National Business Simulation Competition, the Entrepreneurs' Research Forum and the Brand Planning and Promotion Competition.

· Achievements: Students have repeatedly won major prizes in competitions such as the "Challenge Cup" and "Internet Plus", and large numbers of graduates have become leading figures in government and business.

III. Scientific Research

The School hosts six research platforms, including the GDUFE Institute for Innovation Competitiveness in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (a Key Research Base for Humanities and Social Sciences at Guangdong Provincial Universities), the Guangdong Provincial Base for Popularisation of Philosophy and Social Sciences — Digital Transformation and Management Innovation, and theCantonese Merchants Development Research Centre. In recent years it has undertaken more than 20 national-level research projects and over 50 provincial- and ministerial-level projects; published more than 200 papers in leading international business journals listed in UTD24 and FT50 and in Chinese journals such as Economic Research Journal and Management World; and produced 16 books, two of which were selected as national "12th Five-Year Plan" textbooks for undergraduate higher education. Its work has received seven first-, second- and third-class Guangdong Provincial Outstanding Achievement Awards in Philosophy and Social Sciences, and more than 20 of its policy advisory reports have received affirmative instructions from leaders at provincial or ministerial level and above.

IV. Social Service

To bring together GDUFE's strength in intellectual resources and the strength in networking and liaisonof the Guangdong Provincial Federation of Industry and Commerce, GDUFE and the Federation joined forces on 12 March 2023 to co-build the Cantonese Business School. The Cantonese Business School takes as its mission "cultivating Cantonese merchant elites, distilling Cantonese merchant wisdom, passing on Cantonese merchant culture and carrying forward Cantonese merchant spirit". With the construction of a lifelong learning system for Cantonese merchants at its core, with the cultivation and transmission of the Cantonese merchant spirit as an important vehicle, with the advancement of united front work in the private economy and service to the "Two well-being" — the healthy development of the private economy and the healthy growth of private entrepreneurs — as its key objectives, and with services supporting the physical and mental well-being of Cantonese merchants as a distinctive feature, it strives to become a red hall of ideological guidance, a liberal-arts garden for the growth of Cantonese merchants, a research highland for the Cantonese merchant spirit, and a Guangdong model for the training of private entrepreneurs. As of April 2026, the School had delivered a wide range of high-end business and private-economy training programmes, successfully running 70 themed training classes for entrepreneurs, serving a cumulative 5,547 participant-visits among private entrepreneurs, enterprise management backbones and industry professionals, with training contracts worth RMB 8.97 million.

After more than four decades of sustained endeavour, the School has grown into a major base for business and management talent in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and across China. Looking ahead, the School will follow the strategic deployment of the University Party Committee, take Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as its guide, seize the strategic opportunities presented by the Greater Bay Area and by the reform and development of higher education, and remain firmly focused on the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education. Upholding the educational philosophy of "rooted in the Bay Area, distinctive Cantonese merchant character, innovation-driven and internationally aligned", the School will pool its strengths, seize opportunities and pursue leapfrog development as it strives to become a first-class business school in the Greater Bay Area at the earliest opportunity.