Preparing Construction Professionals for Executive Decision Making

Abstract

Increased competition and changing client demands are requiring construction executives to address a wider range of issues than ever before in areas such as strategic analysis, knowledge management, and emerging technologies. However, the education structures in the construction industry, both at the university and professional levels, fail to provide construction professionals with the tools required to fully address these emerging forces. With a project management tradition, construction management education faces a challenge to expand executive level educational opportunities for students and professionals. In response to this challenge, this paper introduces one effort currently underway at the Georgia Institute of Technology to identify what will comprise the emerging construction executive knowledge set, and how it can be incorporated into models for developing construction executives. The paper introduces the approach and preliminary findings of this research effort, emphasizing the reasons why a new set of resources, designed for executive level performance, is important to the future of the construction industry.