Abstract:

The growing complexity of the current competitive business environment together with the development of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in the countries that joined the Bologna process have meant, among other changes, the implementation of a comparable competency-based education system that have transformed traditional educational models. That is because Bologna Treaty promotes a new way of understanding education based on the teaching-learning process as a basis for the acquisition of certain competences by the students (ANECA, 2011), with the principal goal of providing a quality university education that increases students´ employability, so they can adapt to the current needs of the labor market (Sanchez et al., 2013). However, since this adaptation process began a few years ago, it seems interesting to analyze the type of competences that are being carried out in the context of Spanish University Education System to take appropriate actions if deviations are detected.

Within the Spanish University context, Administration and Business Management emerges as one of the most demanded degrees with both a high employability rate up to 82% (Ministerio de Educacion Cultura y Deporte, 2014) and a wide offer of professional opportunities. These positive data are justified by the versatility of the graduates who, through their scientific and professional training of basic and applied aspects of the company's economy, organization and business management, are able to carry out successfully various activities for efficient and effective management of companies, including the development of the necessary skills and competences to do so. That is, Business Administration Degree provides students the possibility to obtain a specific qualification for directing, managing and controlling the different functional areas that configure a company -such as accounting, finance, marketing and operations-, situation that facilitates the rapid access of these students to the labor market.

Operations is a key functional area of any company given that it generates the products and services that make it possible to obtain profits from the company (Heizer and Render, 2007, Serrano et al 2013, Pérez-Pérez et al 2016). Consequently, the main goal of this paper is to offer an in-depth analysis of the defined competences that brings the Operations Management subject within the Administration and Business Management Degrees among Spanish Universities.

This analysis allows us to evaluate the weight of the Operations Management area within the existing Administration and Business Management Degrees in Spanish universities, on the one hand, and to identify differences between them in terms of Operations competences profile offered, on the other hand. Furthermore, the analysis of these results offers valuable information to improve the design and contents of the subjects taught, also increasing their adaptation to current labor market demands. For the achievement of this objective, Spanish universities were analyzed to, firstly, identify those that include Business Management Degrees in their offer and, secondly, to compare the competences (both generic and specific) defined in the Operations Management curricula within the bachelor programmes previously identified.

Keywords:

Operations Management, competence-based analysis, Spanish Universities, EHEA.