The Seasons of a Man’s Life

When Giants Learn to Dance

Competency development in business graduates: An industry-driven approach for examining the alignment of undergraduate business education with industry requirements

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to explore diversity in competence models across Europe and consider the extent to which there is sufficient common ground for a common European approach to underpin the European Qualifications Framework.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a literature review and interviews with policy makers.Findings – Despite the central role of competence in policy initiatives, conceptual approaches to competence vary not only between but also within different member states. This diversity embodies not only language issues but also fundamental cultural differences in approaches to skill formation. Whether the models have sufficient common ground to permit a “best‐fit” European‐wide approach is open to question, although this is clearly an essential prerequisite for removing barriers to labour mobility. Despite initiatives like the European Qualifications Framework there is still no consensus for adopting a common competence model and policy discussions continue to revea...

Competence across Europe: highest common factor or lowest common denominator?

The Strategy Process: Concept, Context, Cases

Purpose – The competence framework continues to be plagued by unresolved conceptual ambiguity. This paper aims to consider other perspectives of managerial performance.Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual article that examines and critiques current perspectives of competence based on an extensive literature review.Findings – Sources of conceptual ambiguity are rooted in treating competence as both independent and dependent variables in relation to managerial performance. A managerial learning framework and a career perspective may offer less ambiguous, more promising conceptual frameworks for managerial performance.Research limitations/implications – The arguments presented for moving beyond the competence framework need to be developed into propositions that can be tested empirically.Practical implications – Management development and education activities may not be achieving their intended outcomes due to the level of conceptual ambiguity found with the competence framework. It may be nece...

In competence we trust? Addressing conceptual ambiguity

Critiques of Masters in Business Administration strategic management education have centered on the failure to adequately integrate two core orientations of the strategic management process, that is, analysis and implementation. Thus, attempts to measure assurance of learning in strategic management capstone courses will inevitably reveal gaps in the degree of deep learning that has occurred in a business program. In this article, we argue that a linear or serial approach to case analysis is a prime culprit in contributing to weaknesses in deep learning and critical thinking. This approach encourages weak reflections, lack of innovation in generating strategic options, and poor implementation planning. We analyze various contemporary approaches to strategic management education in relation to deep learning outcomes and, relying on Bloom’s taxonomy, we propose an alternate, reflection-based framework for teaching strategic management culminating in a discussion on its implications for teaching and practice.

Reflection in Strategic Management Education

Although references to the changing nature of management have pointed to rather substantial if not revolutionary transformations in both the content and process of managerial work (Drucker, 1989; Handy, 1994), it is difficult to find shifts of comparable dimensions in the theoretical frameworks which are utilized to investigate and analyze managerial career patterns. This state of affairs is best illustrated by the treatment of career change in the management literature. Whereas career change is becoming a more common feature of managerial career patterns, as the subsequent literature review will demonstrate, conceptualization and theorization have not kept pace. In this article, I explore the conditions which have made career change a more central aspect of managerial careers, and why career motivation theory (London, 1983), a career development framework is

Career Development and Emerging Managerial Career Patterns

In addressing environmentally induced career change, the career development practitioner is better informed by a career development model than more traditional approaches. The model was tested with Canadian managers and professionals whose positions had been eliminated. Simple regression analysis revealed that career resilience was positively related to three of five job facets that served as indicators of career change. The findings lend support to career development practitioners who strive to build career resilience among employees. Along with organizational advantages already documented, individuals who develop career resilience will be better equipped to face the inevitable prospect of changing careers in the future.

Re‐conceptualizing career change: a career development perspective

The authors describe the development and delivery of a team-building exercise in an online organizational behavior undergraduate course. Qualitative data of student perceptions, collected at the end of the course, revealed both positive and negative reactions to various aspects of the team-building exercise. Based on these reactions, the authors discuss needed improvements in the assignment. They conclude by considering how their experience with the team-building exercise contributes to ongoing discussions about teamwork in management education and team building for virtual teams.

Maurice Grzeda

Papers

In competence we trust? Addressing conceptual ambiguity

Reflection in Strategic Management Education

Career Development and Emerging Managerial Career Patterns

Re‐conceptualizing career change: a career development perspective

Team Building in an Online Organizational Behavior Course