Lee MM (1996) 'Competence and the new manager' in Lee, M.M., Letiche, H., Crawshaw, R., & Thomas M. (Eds.) Management Education in the new Europe: boundaries and complexity. London: ITP. 101 - 117. 1 COMPETENCY AND THE 'NEW' MANAGER IN CENTRAL EUROPE. Dr Monica Lee, Director, Management Teacher Development Centre, Department of Management Learning, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YX, UK Introduction. The views I express here are based upon qualitative research conducted whilst working with Central European teachers of management in Higher Education in a variety of roles, but particularly as coordinator of the Central European Management Teacher Development Programme (CEMTDP), jointly funded by EC:TEMPUS and the Austrian Ministry. The debate, therefore, will take the perspective of the role of the management teacher in creating competent managers within the context of Central Europe. Outline details of CEMTDP are given below in order to establish the basis of the data pool. Further details can be found in Lee (1992b; 1993b). This programme involved an international partnership, has linked more than 45 institutions across Europe, 14 nationalities and 130 management academics (many of whom also held managerial positions in small and medium sized enterprises). It was designed to help faculty from Universities across Central Europe critically evaluate (and re-design if required) their management teaching provision in the light of a range of different Western experiences within an atmosphere of open academic investigation, networking and the sharing of experiences. It was based upon the philosophy of action learning and the majority of resultant projects have focused upon the generation of alternative approaches to existing provision, or the creation of new provision, and range across the full spectrum of management education. Some immediate results were: the high degree of cross-school networking; the publication of a series of books of Polish materials, the first of which contained a variety of Polish case studies springing directly from the programme (Bednarski, 1991); and the early implementation of whole- or parts of the projects, and the effects those were already having on the respective institutions and their staff and students. In essence this programme adhered to Prokopenko’s (1992) assertion that "A fundamental improvement in the quality of management is the key to a successful transition to a market