The Challenge of Developing Business and Professional Values in the Real Estate Graduate: A Business School Perspective

Over the past twenty years the market for real estate graduates has undergone a significant shift in core skill requirements reflecting the changes which have taken place in the real estate sector itself. In particular the real estate services sector - which globally is the most significant employer of real estate graduates - has repositioned itself as a mainstream professional business service sector with a greater emphasis on business skills. As part of this process of change more emphasis has been placed on the need to develop business and professional values in the contemporary real estate graduate. While national professional bodies in the real estate sector have stressed the importance of developing professional ethics in the real estate curriculum for some time the changes in the sector especially the evolution of global delivery platforms in real estate services has necessitated the development of wider graduate value sets which transcend national boundaries and country specific cultural norms. In particular these include business ethics and integrity, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, values intrinsic to developing leadership skills and values relevant to understanding issues related to diversity and inclusion. This paper examines how such value sets can be developed in the classroom by embedding them both explicitly and implicitly in both the real estate curriculum and in extra-curricular activities. A case study of the MSc programme in Real Estate at the Henley Business School, University of Reading is presented. This programme is currently the largest programme of its type in Europe. The paper concludes with a critical assessment of the key findings of the case study as a means of developing a template for embedding business and professional values which can be applied in a wide variety of real estate programmes.