Principles for ‘Engaged Management Education’ : Designing Education Programs for Practicing Project Managers

• For many years, scholars have criticized managementeducation for its lack of connection to real business problemsand disinterest in deep personal learning. Several recentcontributions address the need for reflexive approaches toalign subject learning with development of self-awarenessand purpose. Few papers, however, discuss approaches forintegrating theory and practice in programs for practicingmanagers. As a response to this lacuna, this paper discusses asocial action-oriented twist of experiential learning, drawing onideas of knowledge co-production and engaged scholarship, tobridge the ”knowing-doing gap”. The paper is based on morethan ten years’ of experience with various customized programsfor practicing managers that have been developed with a selectgroup of world-leading Swedish-based firms in such industriesas aerospace, automotive and telecom systems. The paperpresents six practices intended to combine personal learningwith organizational action, however without compromisingacademic standards. The paper concludes with an agenda ofcore principles for building engaged management educationwhere knowledge co-production is the underlying pedagogicalphilosophy. The agenda is viewed as particularly relevant forprograms in project management that are carried out in closepartnership with sponsoring organizations – a market segmentof great importance to many business and engineering schoolsinvolved in project management.

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