What UK graduate employers think they want and what university business schools think they provide

Andrea Harper, Terry Nolan and Russell Warhurst

International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 2009, vol. 3, issue 3, 275-289

Abstract: This paper evaluates the increasing focus on the development of students' competencies and skills for management, in university business schools. The debate suggests that deeper understandings, concerning the role of managers are being sacrificed at the hands of an instrumentalist/technicist agenda focusing on competencies and skills. The paper adds to the discussion by scrutinising and applying theory from the literatures of occupational practice, knowledge and learning. Data is presented from sixty four job advertisements stipulating the competencies and skills required of applicants and which illustrate the premium put upon personal practice knowledge. By taking a critical management perspective students can begin to understand the social context and power-based nature of management practice in the workplace. While universities may try to further fulfil the 'narrow', industry-led, competency focus, early indications suggest that universities may possess a good deal of freedom in designing pedagogies supportive of a critical agenda.

Keywords: business schools; student skills; student competences; knowledge; learning; management practice; graduate employers; UK higher education; United Kingdom; universities. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=23339 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijmcph:v:3:y:2009:i:3:p:275-289

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().