Developing new aviation management postgraduate program in responding to Industry 4.0: Key findings from multistages-multilevels market study

Abstract

Most aviation related academic programs in Malaysia were designed centred around the aerospace engineering and aircraft engineering technologies. However, the emergence of Industry 4.0 demands aviation talents especially the non-management aviation practitioners such as aircraft engineers and other technical personnel to equip themselves with certain management-related skills. Hence, there is a pressing need for an advanced industry-driven and practitioners-based academic program in aviation management suits for various categories of aviation practitioners. The aims of this study are to explore the employability prospective of aviation managers (first stage); to examine the Industry 4.0-related management skills needed by aviation companies (second stage); and to analyse the personal development intention of individual practitioners (third stage). This study employed multistage-multilevel analysis on a single-case market study in a Malaysian aviation technical training university. Findings from this study are segregated into three levels. At the industry level, it is concluded that there is a brighter employability prospect of aviation managers at least until 2030. At the organizational level, there is an urgent need for the aviation professionals to upgrade themselves with managerial skills relevant to the Industry 4.0 such as data driven scenario planning, big data analysis, and collaborative decision making. At the individual practitioner’s level, finding indicates that there is an increasing awareness among the individual aviation professional in particular the technical and engineering professional to engage in personal development in aviation management at postgraduate level. The key contribution of this case study is that, through multistages and multilevels analysis, it not only expands the robustness of the market study on new postgraduate program development but also able to incorporate the perspectives of different aviation stakeholders group i.e. the aviation industry, aviation organizations, and individual aviation talents. This multistage-multilevel model can facilitate university’s policy makers to design future industry-based and practitioners-driven development program meant for industry practitioners.