Work-based Learning in Service Management

The growth of the service industry has placed higher education for business at a crossroads. This article deals with the starting points for the establishment of a new Bachelor of Business Administration Degree Programme at the Lahti University of Applied Sciences, in Southern Finland, to meet the challenge of the growing importance of service expertise.

SIX DRIVERS

The key drivers of the new Lahtibased, BBA in Service Management can be summarised to five following elements:

1. New economic structure calls for a service logic and service expertise!

2. New pedagogies are needed in higher education!

3. Working life and the ways of working are changing!

4. Lahti University of Applied Sciences (LUAS) is a proactive regenerator!

5. New campus development changes the rules of the game!

First, due to the growth of the service industry, the conventional approach needs to be replaced with a new business logic. This places value co-creation and service logic to the fore (see e.g. Vargo & Lusch 2011).

The second driver deals with pedagogical insights. Management education should adopt an approach that values ‘knowing’ as a critically reflected and passionate performance (see Dey & Steyaert 2007) to highlight improvisation, invention and creativity. Pedagogically speaking, the programme is based on work-based learning (WBL), which considers students as workers (Eraut 2009) and emphasises the role of the students as active learners and co-creators of knowledge.

Third, as the key of the business logic is no longer a manufactured good, but a co-created service experience, new skills are also needed. Thus, sense-making, design mindset, social intelligence and crosscultural competence can be seen as increasingly critical future work skills (Davies, Fidler & Gorbis 2011).

The last two drivers underline the proactive approach of the Lahti UAS. In 2012, right after the government-driven structural development 1 took place, the planning of the new programme began. The new line of service sector-oriented business studies offers a pilot for pedagogical insights, which are needed to benefit from the Niemi campus area with new facilities that are smaller in size but more flexible by nature.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES AND STUDY MODULES

Curriculum development began in late spring, April-May, 2012. The commission came directly from the president of LUAS, and the support of the management has been strong right from the beginning. The curriculum development took place both in cross-disciplinary, multiactor meetings and in smaller teams of 2-3 people. The curriculum was published in April 2013.

The brightest idea in the programme is the implementation. In practice, the work-based learning means that the students are placed in service sector-based work communities for four days per week, while they study at the campus on Wednesdays. During the first year, the students will encounter four different service companies or organisations, ranging from retail and public services to associations to industrial services. From the employer’s perspective, this offers a new recruitment channel in the long run. Also, the students operate as sources of service expertise and new ideas for the entire region.

The study modules (15 ECTS) are implemented as sets of three study units (5 ECTS each), and the students will complete one broader assignment at a time. The means of reporting vary from one module to another to inspire the students to illustrate their expertise and learning outcomes in diverse ways. The modules produce a range of learning outcomes, from service expertise to business competencies to service development and service management.

CLOSING REMARKS

Taken together, the pedagogical approach, the workplace partnerships and the service logic in business administration highlight the fact that service expertise and service development competencies are learned in close interaction with concrete everyday encounters, inspirational projects and a seamless dialogue of theory and practice. In January 2014, the second student group will begin their study path. Therefore, the students’ feedback and learning outcomes will be addressed in detail in the articles to come.

The students get to tackle concrete servicedevelopment tasks

References

(1) The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture decided to close down the Degree Programme in Tourism and Hospitality at Lahti UAS due to the structural development of Universities of Applied Sciences in Finland. At the same time, the Ministry created 40 new study places at the Faculty of Business Studies.

Davies, A., Fidler, D., & Gorbis, M. (2011). ‘Future Work Skills 2020’. Palo Alto: Institute for the Future for the University of Phoenix Research Institute. Retrieved October 7, 2013, from http://www.iftf.org/our-work/ global-landscape/work/future-work-skills-2020/.

Dey, P, & Steyaert, C. (2007). ‘The Troubadours of Knowledge: Passion and Invention in Management Education’. Organization, 14(3): 437–461.

Eraut, M. (2009). ‘How Professionals Learn through Work’. Retrieved October 7, 2013, from http:// learningtobeprofessional.pbworks.com. Vargo, S. L. & Lusch, R. F. 2011. 'It's all B2B…and beyond: Toward a systems perspective of the market'. Industrial Marketing Management, 40(2), 181–187.

Mika Kylänen works as principal lecturer at the Lahti UAS (Finland). He specialises in organisation, management and marketing studies, including IORs, coopetition, service management, service development, and the experience economy. He has authored a number of articles on those themes.