Economic Review, Vol. 56 No. 9, 2005.
Professional paper
THE RECENT LEVEL AND QUALITY OF MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP IN CROATIAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Barbara Medanić
Abstract
The longtime research into the factors and limitations of the long-term development of Croatian civil engineering as an essential element of economy have – among other conclusions - also suggested that there is a significant discrepancy between the high technical and technological level of construction production and the level of management and leadership of the production and of the entire construction business. The recent level of management and leadership has been evaluated as impermissibly low and largely conditioned by inappropriate initial and additional education of those who manage different organizational levels of business operations. Defects in the initial education for the management and leadership function are mostly reflected in the absence of knowledge about people and of indispensable broader conceptual knowledge as essential elements of the complete set of knowledge required for leading individuals managing business operations of construction companies. The fields of knowledge in question are an indispensable supplement for the unquestionably available technical knowledge of civil engineers. In this paper, the author therefore discusses the sorts and the contents of broader conceptual knowledge that graduate engineers of civil engineering, as future managers and leaders, should also need to acquire and thus provide the preconditions for higher quality management and leadership in construction business. In the function of the defi ned goal, the author of this paper presents and analyzes: (1) the characteristic of the system of academic education for the fi eld of management and leadership in civil engineering, (2) the required structure of knowledge for modern management and leadership in construction business, (3) the representation of broader conceptual knowledge in the study of civil engineering and accompanying problems in Croatia and in the world, (4) the structure and contents of broader conceptual knowledge in the basic study of civil engineering and in the postgraduate study in the field of organization, technology and economy. Based on research, the author defines future education needs and identifies local resistances against their contemporary satisfying, at the end, the author makes general conclusions and suggests necessary measures.
Keywords
education; management and leadership; broader conceptual knowledge; quality of management and leadership; discrepancy; educational requirements
Hrčak ID:
10406
URI
Publication date:
25.9.2005.
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