Rethinking project management education: Social twists and knowledge co-production Christian Berggren a , Jonas So ¨ derlund a,b, * a Department of Management and Engineering, Linko ¨ ping University, Sweden b BI Norwegian School of Management, Norway Received 17 January 2008; accepted 22 January 2008 Abstract Projects play an important role in modern enterprises, not only as arenas for corporate renewal and capability integration, but also for the development of leadership capacity. As a consequence, the area of project management is becoming increasingly important for uni- versities and management educators. Previous research and reports, however, have given severe critique to much of the project manage- ment education for its lack of relevance and rigor – but offered surprisingly little guidance as to what to do to deal with the problems. In this paper, our aim is to contribute to the current debate about project management education for practicing managers. We draw on more than ten years of experience from two senior-level education programs to show how educational practices can be developed to stimulate knowledge co-production between practitioners and academia. We suggest a model based on a ‘‘social twist” of experiential learning theory and discuss six learning modes of how to rejuvenate, stretch and improve project management education. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved. Keywords: Project management; Education; Learning; Articulation; Social twist; Experiential learning theory; Knowledge theater 1. Project management education in a Mode 2 society In an increasing number of industries, project-based organizations are complementing or in some cases even replacing traditional postwar divisional structures [25].A large survey study by Whittington et al. [26], for instance, documented the widespread growth of project management and its rising importance as a top management concern. As a consequence, project management has become an impor- tant area of research and education. To meet the demand, management educators launch new training programs, mas- ter programs and specialized courses, and today, at many universities and business schools, project management is an important part of the MBA and executive education syl- labus. Project management courses are not only important sources of revenues for universities and business schools, but also critical investments for a range of companies in a growing number of industries and sectors. Despite this important development, some commenta- tors have argued that much more could be done to develop courses and programs on project management, in order to improve the understanding and the knowledge of capabil- ity development and strategy implementation [18]. As it seems, the improvement of courses on project management at university-level and at customized company programs could considerably improve the relevance of management education and corporate practice. But what is the state of project management education today? And what improve- ments are necessary to further improve the quality of man- agement education in the project management area? In an influential initiative called ‘‘Rethinking Project Management” a number of project management scholars and practitioners gathered to set out a new agenda for research and education within the area of project manage- ment. Many of their findings and key lessons learned were 0263-7863/$34.00 Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2008.01.004 * Corresponding author. Address: Department of Management and Engineering, Linko ¨ ping University, Sweden. Tel.: +46 13281000; fax: +46 13281873. E-mail address: jonas.soderlund@liu.se (J. So ¨ derlund). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 286–296 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman