Exploring project management continuing professional development in engineering construction

Project management is a critical organizational capability in the engineering construction sector: the development of that capability through continuing professional development (CPD) is, therefore, of substantive interest to practitioners and researchers alike. The aim of this investigation was to explore current practice in CPD in engineering construction. This was achieved by undertaking a cross-case analysis of the experiences of project management CPD in 17 organizations. The analysis revealed a highly unsystematic approach to CPD and a very limited adaptation of CPD to the engineering construction context. The impact of introducing more structured and contextualized approaches to CPD on the effectiveness of project managers needs to be investigated further.