Doyle, M G (1994) Postgraduate education for European construction management. PhD thesis, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
Abstract
This thesis examines how postgraduate level courses might best educate students for European construction management, given survey evidence presented which shows the current emergence of a real European construction market. An extensive questionnaire based survey of senior management staff of 47 European construction firms (in seven countries), in association with a broad range of interviews and the literature survey, allowed the establishment of both the operational features of the emerging Single European Market construction industry, and the abilities required for future European construction managers. Educational objectives and optimal study areas for postgraduate courses have been determined. Investigation has confirmed that postgraduate courses aimed at educating participants for careers in the transnational European construction industry need to prepare the students for both project management and business development roles, and not only the former as is often the case with current postgraduate construction management courses aimed at national construction industries. The author shows that a major contribution to the overall educational objectives would be made by having flexible course structures involving study periods in two or more countries (and languages). The author investigates those learning processes which have the greatest potential for the education of European construction managers at postgraduate level. Firstly, the vital contribution to be made by group based and student centred learning activities is demonstrated. The research confirms that student groups which have a multinational (or multicultural) and multidisciplinary composition possess tremendous potential for learning the abilities required of a construction manager in the multicultural European construction industry environment, where a strong preference for expansion by means of international joint ventures on individual projects is shown to exist.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | business development; careers; construction firms; education; educational objectives; emergence; learning; market |
| Index terms: | evidence, questionnaire, construction manager, career, postgraduate, emergence, business development, preference, student-centred, interview, survey, construction firm, management staff, investigation, project management, construction market, educational objective, construction industry, joint venture |
| Subjects: | business, profession, data collection methods, project management theory and practice, professional development, management, systems engineering, student experience, industry analysis, higher education, organization, evaluation and assessment methods, curriculum development, decision-making and reasoning, market analysis |
| Topics: | Education, Engineering Principles, Project Management, Human Resources, Business Strategy, Information Management, Research Practice, Roles and Professions |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here