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The article aims to analyze how personal development training influences managers' identity processes.
Abstract
Purpose
The article aims to analyze how personal development training influences managers' identity processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The article, taking an interpretive‐critical approach, is based on a qualitative, longitudinal study of five participants (managers) in a personal development training program. During the two years of research, 62 interviews (with the managers and related personnel) were conducted and 13 observations were made.
Findings
Personal development training provokes identity regulation by prescribing a normative identity process that claims managers should engage in a process of reflection in order to gain self‐awareness. Such training constitutes a local management discourse that may influence different levels of identity work and identity regulation processes depending on the participants' expectations, their organizations and professional situations, their level of insecurity, as well as their previous experience with management discourse.
Practical implications
Since management training influences participants' identity processes, program organizers, purchasers and participants should be wary of the expectation that management training will deliver content as “a package” of managerial skills.
Originality/value
The study challenges the traditional view of management training as a provider of skills and solutions for managers by focusing instead on its influence on managers' processes of identity work and identity regulation. Management training in general is claimed to regulate identities and direct identity work by providing inspirational identities. However, this study finds that personal development training regulates identities by prescribing the identity process in itself.
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Marion O'Connor, John Mangan and John Cullen
Drawing upon survey and interview data, this research paper aims to explore the usage and impact of management development processes and practices in Ireland from an…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing upon survey and interview data, this research paper aims to explore the usage and impact of management development processes and practices in Ireland from an organisational perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines numerous related issues including: the issue of aligning management development needs to business strategy; the usage of management development methods; the development of high potential managers; and the assignment of responsibility for management development. Tbe paper is the result of a study which included a combination of 13 semi‐structured interviews with HR/training managers and the completion of postal questionnaires by 53 respondents from the HR/training management population in Ireland from a cross section of organisations.
Findings
The study suggests that organisations are both concerned for their management population, see their development as a key priority and are willing to invest in them. Organisations are experimenting with the usage of numerous developmental methods and are particularly aware of the benefits achieved from informal methods. Both reactive and ad‐hoc approaches to management development were observed.
Originality/value
This paper adds value to management learning and education theory and concludes by highlighting the fact that before initiating management development activities, organisations must question their rationale for investing resources in development. Failing to devote time at the initiation stage of a management development activity will result in organisations trying to “reverse engineer” and justify developmental initiatives upon completion. Organisations must become more acutely aware of the indirect benefits that accrue from management development instead of focusing all attention to the visible direct outcomes.
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Colin Fletcher, Ruth Higginbotham and Peter Norris
Aims to substantiate a previous study conducted in 1960 whichexplored the links between work and non‐work activities. Three types oflinks between leisure and work activity were…
Abstract
Aims to substantiate a previous study conducted in 1960 which explored the links between work and non‐work activities. Three types of links between leisure and work activity were proposed: compensation, spillover and segmental participation. Reports on a 1992 survey which examined the links observed from data gathered from 301 managers. There is evidence to support the view that segmental participation is the main link and that compensation and spillover are the minor links. Analysis of the percentages, modes and correlations all suggest that independent management development is edged to the margins by each link and in distinctive ways.
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Anjaney Borwankar and S. Ramakrishna Velamuri
The purpose of this paper is to study the potential for management development in non‐governmental organization (NGO)‐private sector partnerships.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the potential for management development in non‐governmental organization (NGO)‐private sector partnerships.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is an in‐depth case study of a program run by the British subsidiary of a large European financial services company that had sent 60 middle and senior managers and two external consultants over a ten‐year period (1994‐2004) on capacity building assignments to nine NGO partners in southern India. Questionnaires, interviews and archives of the program were the sources of data.
Findings
The study finds that assignees described the effect of the assignments on them as profound, some as transformational. Managers completed the capacity building assignments successfully and returned with greater self‐awareness and enhanced self‐confidence, and with a greater ability to handle ambiguity and uncertainty. Based on the input provided by the NGO partners, they also benefited from the assignments. However, the benefits to the private sector company (financial services organization) are not clear from the study.
Research limitations/implications
This theoretical contribution is situated in the literature on self‐awareness and proposes management development as a viable objective in NGO‐private sector partnerships. Limitations of generalizing from a single case study are acknowledged and future research avenues identified.
Practical implications
The ten‐year experience of a large European multi‐national organization of partnering with nine Indian NGOs highlights rich potential for management development in such partnerships, through the development of self‐awareness and self‐confidence of key managerial talent. The circumstances under which such interventions might be appropriate are suggested.
Originality/value
To the authors' knowledge, the potential for management development in NGO‐private sector partnerships has been under‐studied in the academic literature. The authors believe that the paper offers interesting insights and suggests further avenues for exploration.
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Attempting to get the best of both worlds is always an elusive goal. Perhaps this is why there has been so much irritable recrimination in the management education world during…
What is likely to happen to management development in the seventies? I believe that it will become closely linked with a newly evolving branch of management— development…
Abstract
What is likely to happen to management development in the seventies? I believe that it will become closely linked with a newly evolving branch of management— development management. Development management is concerned with building new forms of organisation that will enable the enterprise to cope effectively with change. This contrasts with operations management, which is concerned with the efficient use of existing resources to make the goods and services currently required, and with the rapid restoration of a steady state whenever a breakdown occurs. In some enterprises, it is possible to relate the two aspects of management very closely in day‐to‐day working. In others, the two need to be sharply separated if they are to be mutually effective. In either case, the co‐ordination of operations and development is a vital function of general management. With the growth of development management, general management will need more careful study, as its tasks will become more complex and demanding.
The purpose of this paper is to examine why theatre‐business links are relevant to management. The focus is on two types of links: using theatre techniques as a training method…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine why theatre‐business links are relevant to management. The focus is on two types of links: using theatre techniques as a training method for managers, and using corporate theatre as a change management tool. The paper seeks to share an experience and tries to explicate the processes involved in order to explain the success of these two kinds of courses, both training theatre and corporate theatre (specifically, action theatre in this case).
Design/methodology/approach
This is a case study. Theatre has been taught for ten years at the Grenoble Graduate School of Business under the author's responsibility, and also the corporate theatre method is taught to initial students and to continuing training managers. This paper is based on those teaching experiences. To explain the relevance of both of theatre as a training tool and corporate theatre as a management tool, the author relates to both theories of body memory from neuroscientists and to the catharsis phenomenon.
Findings
The goal was to make hypotheses from the above theories which explain the process that takes place inside the manager undergoing training and to open further research.
Research limitations/implications
Main limitations come from the lack of established empirical and relevant measures of the effects of such theatre processes on participants’ management abilities and from the lack of tools to measure the long‐term effects of theatre.
Practical implications
The most important implication is that practitioners could make more relevant use of such techniques when designing training sessions or utilizing corporate theatre interventions.
Social implications
Social implications come from how the “human” face of theatre can help the personal development of managers, improving or changing their views on the world and other people.
Originality/value
Although theatre and business links are more than 20 years old, nobody has previously tried to understand the inner processes involved.
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We are all familiar with the fable of the blind man's perception of the shape of an elephant. Management development, in its short 20 year history, has had at least as many…
Abstract
We are all familiar with the fable of the blind man's perception of the shape of an elephant. Management development, in its short 20 year history, has had at least as many different perceptions of its shape. From these different perceptions have emerged very different programmes, activities, structures, roles, practices and even many professions.
The 1990s literature portrays the corporate personnel/HR function as in decline due to the decentralisation and delayering of large organisations. As a result personnel’s presence…
Abstract
The 1990s literature portrays the corporate personnel/HR function as in decline due to the decentralisation and delayering of large organisations. As a result personnel’s presence on boards of directors and participation in the formation of corporate business and HR strategies cannot survive. This paper challenges this view arguing that strategies do not originate at main board of director level but at the CEO executive group level in most cases. Research has shown the personnel/HR function’s involvement at this level to be higher than on main boards. Other recent evidence has accorded personnel a higher strategic role in MNCs, especially regarding the staffing and development of an international cadre of managers. This evidence however supports the view that personnel’s corporate presence declined from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s before picking up, whereas the paper’s argument favours a steady growth thesis from the early 1970s. Additionally the dominant perspective contains an overly top down view of strategy formation whereas this paper argues for a counter‐balancing bottom up influence on strategy formation.
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Describes the background to – and some of the design issuesraised by – the BT Redeployment Development Centre project. Boththe ethical considerations of shared feedback and…
Abstract
Describes the background to – and some of the design issues raised by – the BT Redeployment Development Centre project. Both the ethical considerations of shared feedback and benefits to the participants are examined in a change management context. Highlights some possible pitfalls for potential designers of such events.
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