Article 2009

Undergraduate management education: Its place, purpose and efforts to bridge the skills gap

Journal of Management and Organization
Journal · Vol. 15 · Issue 2
Abstract

Australian business graduates are deemed by industry as not being 'job ready' (BCA 2006; BIHECC 2007), lacking the skills required to successfully apply disciplinary knowledge and add value to our globalised, knowledge economy. There exists a lack of empirical evidence and professional input for business schools on profiling the attributes valued by industry. This is especially true for those majoring in management who are consistently overshadowed by their more commercially attractive postgraduate counterparts. In a bid to satisfy industry demands, the most common response among Australian business schools are the development of employability skills and enhanced involvement of industry professionals in curricula content and design, both subject to potential failings and criticism. This review of business school efforts to bridge the skills gap also examines the role, function and impact of undergraduate management education, a research area significantly overlooked in recent years. © 2011 eContent Management.

Keywords

Author Keywords

employability Undergraduate Australia transfer management competencies Generic attributes

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations
Graduate School of Education, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
Funding & Acknowledgements
No funding information
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8 Information Technology Workforce Skills Study, (2007)
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