Project management: a profession with a hole in its head or, why a change in the culture of academic support is needed for the profession

Abstract

Project management is a practice-oriented discipline. What should be the role of senior academics as experts in project management knowledge? And given that some of the knowledge needed to manage projects is skill based as well as theoretical and conceptual, what can we say should be the distinctive area of knowledge that defines the profession? This paper notes the difficulty academics have in presenting the discipline as a whole and proposes in consequence that they become more involved in practice. Action research and coaching would be two means of doing this, to the benefit of both practitioners and academics.