Leading Change in Management Education in Department of Management

Globalised environment supported by fast ICT development change the rules and ways how business is done. New generation of managers and entrepreneurs needs knowledge on management relevant to these changes. The paper discusses the process of change happening in Department of Management, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Economics, Prague. The goal of the change is to adapt the way management is taught according to stakeholders' needs and in comparison with the standard of teaching the subject abroad. The Department of Management has a new manager (department chair) who initiated all the necessary changes to meet new requirements for modern management education. He assembled new team responsible for management courses and chaperons the change. The change happening in the department is a transitional change and its character comprises both process and product innovation. The product innovation is represented by the change in the syllabi of individual courses, especially in the general management course. The process innovation covers all process changes related to this change. In our paper we are focusing on the way these changes are managed and lead. At the moment we are approximately in the middle of the process of the change and relevant information is at disposal. We are mainly focusing on two views. The first is the view of the head of Department of Management and his perceptions of the changes made. The second is the view of academics who participate in the change. The topic is interesting for academic debate for the sake of several reasons. Firstly, the change is a sensitive change, and not everyone finds it befitting. Secondly, all people who participate in the change are knowledge workers. Some of them are experienced academic staff (used to previous status quo and style of work), some of them are new. We would like to identify tools, ideas and methods, the manager uses in leading this highly specific group of employees through this considerable change. We would also like to find out how academics perceive the change, its individual phases, the impact they have on knowledge, pedagogical process and their own lives and carriers. The comprehension and argumentation will be based on interviews and analysis of the answers. The findings will be based on research planned for late April 2015 that will take place in University of Economics, Prague while preparing changes in general management course.