A road map for empowering undergraduates to practice service leadership through service-learning in teams
Document Type
Journal article
Source Publication
Journal of Management Education
Publication Date
6-1-2015
Volume
39
Issue
3
First Page
372
Last Page
399
Publisher
Sage Publications, Inc.
Keywords
Hong Kong, leadership development, qualitative research, service leadership, service-learning
Abstract
We present a road map for providing course-embedded service-learning team projects as opportunities for undergraduates to practice as service leaders in Asia and beyond. Basic foundations are that projects address authentic problems or needs, partner organization representatives (PORs) indicate availability for ongoing consultation, students receive a complete orientation to service leadership, and project themes align with course curricula. Infrastructure and support involves a bridge of interinstitutional commitment and trust, initial site visits, in-class project consultations, helping teams to form and to elect conveners, providing service leadership reporting templates, and requiring project reports as graded coursework assignments. Potential road blocks include diversion from genuine service needs, POR/data unavailability, free riders, and failure to connect the project to course content. A bridge of student commitment leads to four other ingredients for successful project experiences: a sense of progress toward making a difference, constructive student-POR learning relationships, distributed leadership and initiative-taking, and applying course material to gain insight, guide actions, and frame recommendations. Besides attaining course-level goals, desired outcomes are that students and PORs perceive that the project has delivered good service, and that students can explain their practices and development as service leaders. We present three qualitative case illustrations.
DOI
10.1177/1052562914545631
Print ISSN
10525629
E-ISSN
15526658
Publisher Statement
Copyright © The Author(s) 2014
Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.
Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Snell, R. S., Chan, M. Y. L., Ma, C. H. K., & Chan, C. K. M. (2015). A road map for empowering undergraduates to practice service leadership through service-learning in teams. Journal of Management Education, 39(3), 372-399. doi: 10.1177/1052562914545631