From the article: "The object of this paper is to explore the actual practice in project management education in the Netherlands and compare it to reference institutions and recent literature. A little over 40% of the Higher Education institutions in the Netherlands mentions PM education in programs and/or courses. A total of 264 courses, minors and programs in the Netherlands found. In reference institutions 33 courses and programs are found and 36 publications deal with actual teaching of project management in Higher Education. Comparing these sources finds traditional methods of teaching and testing, a roughly comparable focus on subjects and an unsupported high claim of learning level, while the number of credits assigned to project management is relatively small. There is a strong focus on planning without execution, which is critiqued as is the promoted Project Based Learning."
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This article is a comment on the article “Decoupling Responsible Management Education” (Journal of Management Inquiry) by Andreas Rasche and Dirk Ulrich Gilbert. Based on a survey conducted in 2014 among Dutch MBA program managers from academic universities and universities of professional education and public and private institutions, it gives some additional color to their article by shedding some initial empirical light on the propositions. The findings allow for speculating on business school behavior in the context of engaging in the responsible management education (RME) agenda and identify several avenues for further empirical research and theoretical conceptualization. Although the larger part of this constructively intended comment focuses on RME and business schools, it also addresses aspects of decoupling more generally.
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Innovation is crucial for higher education to ensure high-quality curricula that address the changing needs of students, labor markets, and society as a whole. Substantial amounts of resources and enthusiasm are devoted to innovations, but often they do not yield the desired changes. This may be due to unworkable goals, too much complexity, and a lack of resources to institutionalize the innovation. In many cases, innovations end up being less sustainable than expected or hoped for. In the long term, the disappointing revenues of innovations hamper the ability of higher education to remain future proof. Against the background of this need to increase the success of educational innovations, our colleague Klaartje van Genugten has explored the literature on innovations to reveal mechanisms that contribute to the sustainability of innovations. Her findings are synthesized in this report. They are particularly meaningful for directors of education programs, curriculum committees, educational consultants, and policy makers, who are generally in charge of defining the scope and set up of innovations. Her report offers a comprehensive view and provides food for thought on how we can strive for future-proof and sustainable innovations. I therefore recommend reading this report.
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From the article: A process focus for project management education is suggested based on a small qualitative sample as an alternative to competence focus. Commercial offerings of project management education are more focused on processes than competences. Review of the courses reveals that there is almost no offering for alongside, medior or senior project managers and that the scarce competences incorporated in the courses do not match with findings from previous research. There are several strong suggestions of a very weak curriculum consistency, like universal application, a diverse target audience and a strong bias towards planning, supporting earlier critique on project management education.
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Acknowledging the roles and responsibilities of business in society and the importance of realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), contemporary management education is characterized by the integration of a rich palette of initiatives in the field of Responsible Management Education (RME). It is important though to recognize that these initiatives, however laudable, so far represent rather basic, and thus insufficient, ways of truly integrating sustainability into management education. This Provocation to Debate essay therefore identifies three perspectives for bolstering RME through the SDGs: (1) addressing the fact that SDGs incorporate trade-offs, tensions, and paradoxes; (2) realizing the SGDs implies engaging in systemic activism; and (3) embracing the SDGs comes with emotional affect. As such, this essay is an invitation to critically reflect on the roles and contents of management education in spurring sustainable development and to engage in a meaningful discussion about the value and the limitations of the SDGs for advancing the RME agenda.
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Paper presented at the CARPE Conference Manchester 2013 Various programs in higher education feel a need to teach project management skills to students. Measuring the effect of education is a challenge especially when focused on behavioral skills. Research on learning gains often turns to the method of Students Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG). This article constructs five design criteria for an instrument that measures added value: measure satisfaction, use pre- and posttests, use perceived ability, account for learning stage one a nd account for attrition. A first design was tested on a semester of a professional master in project management. The test yields ambiguous results, further research is required.
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There is an urgency and need to develop an innovative strategic approach for organizations to develop a sustainable organization for the future, in which they are able to respond resiliently to major environmental challenges and changes in the short term and adjust the management of the organization. On the same time, in this strategic approach learning and transforming accordingly in the long term is involved as well. This approach will give organizations the opportunity to operationalize their boards’ and stakeholders’ ambitions to build a responsible business, with focus on governance elements, as well as interaction with social and environmental factors, risk, and strategy from a holistic view. In education, students could work with this approach in future projects for real companies.
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This study investigated perceptions of organizational change management among executive coaches working with British higher-education leaders and factors that make leaders effective when managing change. This basic qualitative research used semi-structured interviews with eight executive coaches selected through purposeful sampling. As main challenges to efficient, inclusive change management, participants mentioned leaders’ lack of a strategic vision or plan, lack of leadership and future leader development programs, and lack of clarity in decision-making. They recognized that leaders’ academic and professional profiles are positively viewed and said that, with coaching and support in leadership and strategic planning, these people can inspire the academic community and promote positive change. Additional emphasis was given to the role of coaching in the development of key soft skills (honesty, responsibility, resiliency, creativity, proactivity, and empathy, among others), which are necessary for effective change management and leadership in higher education. The paper’s implications have two aspects. First, the lessons of the actual explicit content of the coaches’ observations (challenges to efficient change management and views of leaders); second, the implications of these observations (how coaching can help and what leaders need).
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More than 25!years after Moore’s first introduction of the public value concept in 995, the concept is now widely used, but its operationalization is still considered difficult. This paper presents the empirical results of a study analyzing the application of the public value concept in Higher Education Institutions, thereby focusing on how to account for public value. The paper shows how Dutch universities of applied sciences operationalize the concept ‘public value’, and how they report on the outcome achievements. The official strategy plans and annual reports for FY2016 through FY2018 of the ten largest institutions were used. While we find that all the institutions selected aim to deliver public value, they still use performance indicators that have a more narrow orientation, and are primarily focused on processes, outputs, and service delivery quality. However, we also observe that they use narratives to show the public value they created. In this way this paper contributes to the literature on public value accounting.
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Dit Trendrapport Open Education 2014 beschrijft de trends op het gebied van open education in binnen- en buitenland, geschreven vanuit de context van het Nederlandse hoger onderwijs. Dat gebeurt aan de hand van acht artikelen van Nederlandse experts op het gebied van open en online onderwijs en acht korte intermezzo’s.
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