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The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which the small firm's external relationships influence its approach to formal training and training providers.

A qualitative approach was adopted, involving semi‐structured interviews with senior managers, in 25 small firms in South Wales. These interviews were informed by prior workplace observation and analysis of organisational documentation. Further interviews were conducted with employees in nine of the firms.

The findings indicate that the small firm's informal relationships with trusted, familiar and credible contacts – referred to as insiders, following Gibb – are central to the way in which it perceives both training and training providers. Government agencies, training providers and other traditional stakeholders generally sit outside these informal insider networks, and tend to be viewed as culturally remote by the small firm.

The findings emphasise the need for training providers and government agencies to obtain the support and co‐operation of insider networks if they wish to promote training within the small business sector. The main limitations include the relatively narrow geographical focus and the absence of retail firms from the sample.

While the importance of informal networks within the small business community is now well established, the constitution of such networks and their effects on attitudes towards training providers are less well understood. The paper helps to address these gaps by starting the process of mapping insider networks and illuminating their impact on small firms' perceptions of training providers.

There is a noticeable absence of robust debate over the decision to deliver free or subsidised training programmes to those running small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), Many governments offer these schemes, despite the lack of empirical evidence that programmes aimed at individuals contribute positively to firm performance and therefore to economic growth. A similar situation probably exists in the firms that participate in training; a lack of robustness in the way they ensure a relationship between the training selected and the needs of employees in the context of their jobs. This paper explores the issues facing both firms and government agencies in New Zealand as they make decisions about investing in training as an enterprise development strategy. It is suggested that the way in which firms and government agencies behave in relation to training investment decisions is flawed: those involved follow received wisdom, act upon hunches and appear indifferent to ensuring that their respective investments are maximised. This situation will continue until it is realised that training is a key developmental strategy and gaining value from training events means that more rigour needs to be applied to planning and evaluation.

This paper reports a study comparing perceptions, attitudes and job outcomes of participants whilst attending pre‐employment government training. Carried out so that tutors may gain a better understanding of client need in the Greater Manchester area 1999/2000, the focus of discussion was based on Jobclub and Work Based Training as voluntary training and Jobplan and New Deal 18‐24, which are mandatory. The qualitative study sought to explore and address whether gender, age, health, previous qualification or course content had any bearing on results. Study found that respondents on Jobclub and Work Based Training perceived their courses in a mostly positive light and attitudes were favourable. Consequently these clients gained more jobs than mandatory referrals. New Deal trainees were the least positive and gained fewer jobs. These noted attitudes will serve to provide guidance for tutors when developing the structure and content of future training schemes.

This paper explores how education and training systems can support a digitally-enabled workforce for the Australian manufacturing sector.

The study is based on interviews with 17 sector-level manufacturing stakeholders from industry, government and education/training organisations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of how education and training systems currently support a digitally-enabled manufacturing workforce as well as opportunities for alternative configurations or developments.

Analysis revealed three themes reflecting core dimensions of a supportive education and training system: partnerships, pedagogy and prospects. Cooperative, integrated and sustained partnerships are needed between vocational education and training (VET) institutions, universities, government, industry, high schools and private training providers. Pedagogy emphasises the vital importance of infusing curriculum with digital and technology skills and capabilities, alongside innovative and experiential delivery modes including simulated environments, online learning, on-the-job training, flexible delivery and micro-credentials. Prospects reflects the need for forward-looking assessment and planning to respond to industry trends and develop associated qualifications, skills and investments required to meet future industry needs.

With growing demand for digitally-enabled skills to support manufacturing, an industry which is acknowledged as critical for economic prosperity and national sovereignty, the findings contribute novel insights into current limitations and future opportunities to bridge the gap between skills shortages in the manufacturing industry, and education and training systems that deliver graduate readiness and a digitally-enabled workforce.

Village health volunteers are community health volunteers in Thailand that have helped the government deliver public health services for many years, particularly during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Though labeled as “volunteers,” the village health volunteers are recruited, trained and supervised in a manner similar to how a government agency recruits, trains and supervises its street-level bureaucrats (SLBs). This study examines the two factors that affect how these street-level quasi-bureaucrats use their professional discretion: transformational leadership and public service motivation (PSM). Transformational leadership means a leadership style that develops, shares and sustains a vision to elevate SLBs to higher levels of performance, while PSM is defined as an SLB’s predisposition to make a difference by working in the public sector with a sense of calling. This study attempts to analyze the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship between transformational leadership, PSM and professional discretion.

The paper uses a three-wave survey-based quantitative method to avoid common method biases. This method provides evidence gathered from 105 subdistrict health promotion hospitals and 798 village health volunteers (VHVs) in five provinces in Thailand.

PSM and transformational leadership influence the village health volunteers' use of professional discretion indirectly through the psychological empowerment mechanisms that make them feel positive toward their village health volunteer role and responsibility. The authors' findings suggest that the hospital directors' transformational leadership induces the village health volunteers' use of professional discretion by making them feel competent to do their work and feel fulfilled and valuable about their work. Similarly, the village health volunteers' PSM leads them to use professional discretion by making them feel fulfilled and valuable and by convincing them of the social and community impact of their work.

While existing research focuses on VHVs' role in alleviating capacity constraints on the health care system, this study revealed an equally important role played by hospital directors. These directors' transformational leadership was instrumental in enhancing VHVs' psychological empowerment – particularly their perceptions of the meaning of their work and their competence – that ultimately enabled them to use professional discretion in their work. This study also highlighted the importance of VHVs' PSM, which leads to their use of professional discretion via the meaning and impact dimensions of psychological empowerment. Based on this study, PSM should also be incorporated into the community health volunteers' recruitment criteria. Also, public health agencies should consider including transformational leadership in the hospital directors' training programs and their promotion criteria.

As VHVs' high-PSM level was found to enhance their professional discretion, the process of recruiting ordinary citizens to serve as community health volunteers should incorporate assessment of the candidates' PSM. Also, the Ministry of Public Health should design and assign tasks that citizen volunteers, particularly VHVs, consider meaningful and at which they feel competent.

Aside from technical training, directors of the subdistrict health promotion hospitals should regularly receive soft skill training (i.e. leadership training) and transformational leadership characteristics should be included in the government criteria for promotion.

While past research has examined the impact of other leadership styles on psychological empowerment, this study took a further step by examining the mediating effects of psychological empowerment on the relationship between transformational leadership and professional discretion among VHVs. The authors analyzed the mechanism linking PSM to the VHVs' professional discretion. In addition, by examining the relative importance of different dimensions of psychological empowerment, this study offers a nuanced understanding of the psychological processes by which transformational leadership and PSM shape the SLBs' use of professional discretion in their work.

The ways available for businesses, both small and large, to obtain help and advice from Management Consultancies through the Government′s Training Agency are discussed, and an actual case study in which the procedures and outcome are discussed in detail is cited.

This article focuses upon six recent training initiatives in Britain, all of which included a small business training remit. It evaluates the training impact of these initiatives on a sample of 6,000 small businesses and measures their effectiveness in terms of awareness, understanding, interest and actual implementation rates. The research highlights a number of common trends pertinent to the training initiatives reviewed in this study, suggesting that there may be a considerable mismatch between specific small business training needs and the services on offer.

This study aims to address two interrelated research questions. First, to compare the academy performance of police recruits trained under a traditional academy curriculum with the performance of those trained under a new academy curriculum based on community policing. Second, to investigate whether a different “type” of recruit performs better in the community policing curriculum compared with the traditional curriculum.

Regression analysis is used to estimate the effects of independent variables on three dependent variables that indicate academy success: average academy scores, failure experiences, and post‐academy employment.

Results suggest that more highly educated recruits and female recruits fared better in the community policing curriculum but that, overall, recruits in the community policing curriculum performed similarly to their traditional counterparts.

The findings suggest that newer police training models may be rewarding skills consistent with the community policing philosophy, such as education. This is a study of one police training center that has instituted a new training curriculum, so results cannot be generalized to other training centers. The community policing curriculum was in the early stages of implementation when data were collected and was therefore not yet standardized. Finally, the analysis is limited to predicting the success of police recruits in the academy, rather than predicting their job performance.

Few studies have examined academy training in community policing. This study is a first step to broadening understanding of the impact of academy training in community policing on police recruits.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an alternative understanding of knowledge transfers in developing contexts by drawing on recent deconstructions of the development sciences in anthropology and postcolonial studies to analyze transfers of management knowledge in Malaysia. Contrary to most mainstream research that conceives of transfers as a literal or objective process of skills deployment and acquisition, it refers attention to the modernist assumptions, concepts and practices of knowledge/power that are attached to knowledge transfers.

The study is based on primary and secondary data from two electronics multinational and statutory agencies in Malaysia. Primary data were collected via interviews with training officials and managers; observations were based on training and training‐related events like orientation. Secondary data include multinational and statutory agency literature, quality control circle reports and a corporate orientation video. Data analysis included discourse analysis and deconstruction.

Findings highlight the importance of situating knowledge transfers within the discursive and socially organized terrain (local and global) – economic, institutional, disciplinary – that transfers are embedded in, and the significance of knowledge transfers and the attendant focus on training as sites for cultivating and producing the modern market subjects needed to have and to sustain neoliberal forms of development and globalization. The paper re‐situates interests in knowledge transfers in terms of a need by state officials and foreign multinationals to actively produce and reconstitute local subjects into modern market citizens that are able and capable of contributing – as required – to the development and organizational needs of said institutions.

By extrapolating insights from recent deconstructions of the development sciences and postcolonial studies, the paper provides an alternative way of researching the process, and understanding the significance of transfers: one that showcases the close imbrications between knowledge, power, subjectification, and interconnections between local institutions/constituents (e.g. statutory agencies, government ministries, training personnel) and global capital (e.g. multinationals).

There has been a long-running debate as to which is more important in the job market, education or experience. Traditionally, people have looked at these as exclusive traits of one another; however, more progressive thought sees these as complimentary attributes in perspective and existing employees that can be achieved at the same time through proactive activities such as micro-credentialing. This chapter will explore how formal and informal micro-credentialing processes can be put forward in both education and training environments.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, 2022) shows an increase in severity and frequency of natural disasters in the past years with more organisations being faced with surviving these events than ever before. The recent COVID pandemic has shown how every organisation across the globe can be affected by a disaster and the cascading effects that follow. Techniques such as micro-credentialing is a tool that can be utilised by all organisations to ensure a safer outcome from these events as well as being positioned for better continuity of critical operations through the event helping to increase the survivability and profitability of the affected organisation.

The use of micro-credentialing components successfully could be discussed using any field or discipline. To be applicable to all readers, this chapter primarily focusses on the emergency services/management discipline as an example programme of how micro-credentialing can be efficiently utilised to produce a more successful workforce. Emergency management (EM) truly is an interdisciplinary field that utilises many other fields to protect people, organisations, and communities from emergencies and disasters. More importantly, though, there are components of EM that every field should embrace for safety as well as to ensure continuity of operations through any event, thereby making the components in this chapter applicable to all readers regardless of discipline or organisation.