An Integrated Competency-based Approach to Management Education: an Italian MBA Case Study

Several studies have analysed the impact of competency-based methodologies on human resource management, with special emphasis on their applications to management education and development. As concerns management education, however, these studies have usually focused on one or few separate aspects, never proposing a consistent application of competency- based methodologies throughout the entire educational process. This paper shows how it is possible to design, deliver and monitor a management education programme that uses, in an integrated manner, a multiplicity of competency-based tools in all the stages of the process, and discusses the application of such an integrated approach to an Italian MBA programme. This study provides a multiple constituency framework that integrates educational institutions, students and the companies that hire them in the design, implementation and control of effective, competency-based, management education.