Pedagogy, Practice and Procedure (The P 3 Project) - Educating Engineering Managers A Model for the Future

Abstract

Over the past two decades there has been much discussion about how to best educate Engineering Managers. Indeed, traditional Management Education within Business School Settings has been subjected to considerable criticism, with, some suggesting that traditional MBA programmes lack engineering context and application and thus fail to meet the needs of both employers and students. Conversely, others postulate that Business Schools provide graduate students with generic skills and transferable competencies and are thus exactly engineering managers should be educated. Looking critically at Engineering Management Education within an Engineering School, this paper suggests that graduate level Engineering Management Education needs to be led by Engineers who have experience in industry and who also are qualified in management. It introduces a model of organisational change developed specifically for an Engineering Education setting and considers how that model may be best applied to an Engineering Management Education setting