Students’ learning of management and leadership in engineering education – a literature review

ABSTRACT

The increasing complexity of societal problems and the need for more interdisciplinary problem-solving in the future raise new demands for future engineering competences. Consequently, competences related to management and leadership must be reconsidered and reflected in both engineering education and engineering education research. This leads to the following research question: In which ways are students’ learning of management and leadership articulated and related in engineering education literature? In this study, this research question is answered through a systematic literature review wherein 112 journal articles were reviewed to explore articulations of students’ learning of management and leadership competences. The review finds extensive diversity in the literature, with different and sometimes even overlapping articulations of management and leadership in an educational context. Furthermore, the review identifies a difference between implicit and explicit approaches to addressing the development of students’ management and leadership competences. Finally, the importance of the mutual interaction between management and leadership is discussed in an engineering education context. It is stressed that moving forward when working with complex problems in interdisciplinary teams requires both change and vision, as well as the tools and plans to actually make it happen.

KEYWORDS:

• Engineering education research
• interdisciplinarity
• complex problems
• PBL
• leadership
• management

Acknowledgements

This work is part of InterPBL, a research project aimed at developing innovative educational models to educate engineers in working proactively and interactively in an interdisciplinary work environment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Poul Due Jensens Fond; Poul Due Jensens Fond (Grundfos Foundation).

Notes on contributors

Henrik Worm Routhe

Henrik Worm Routhe is with the Aalborg Centre for Problem Based Learning in Engineering, Science and Sustainability under the auspices of UNESCO (UCPBL) Aalborg University, Denmark.

Jette Egelund Holgaard

Jette Egelund Holgaard is with the Aalborg Centre for Problem Based Learning in Engineering, Science and Sustainability under the auspices of UNESCO (UCPBL) Aalborg University, Denmark.

Anette Kolmos

Anette Kolmos is with the Aalborg Centre for Problem Based Learning in Engineering, Science and Sustainability under the auspices of UNESCO (UCPBL) Aalborg University, Denmark.