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This chapter examines the changing nature of frontline supervision in light of the supervisory training and development programme which was provided to shift-bosses in order to complement the workplace change processes that AfricaGold embarked on to improve operational efficiency, productivity and safety of its mining operations. Although the training course was an important workplace change initiative taken by top management to improve organisational, individual and team performance at the rock-face where it mattered most, lack of organisational and managerial support prevented frontline supervisors from effectively implementing what they learned on the training course. The chapter highlights the importance of not only providing organisational change-focused training, but also systematically and strategically involving frontline supervisors in the conceptualisation, design, execution and evaluation of workplace change initiatives. It is only when frontline supervisors are supported, managerially and organisationally, that they can be deal-makers rather than deal-breakers for a successful introduction and execution of change initiatives on the shop-floor.

Examines the use of learning contracts to achieve supervisory development in an organization with highly centralized decision‐making processes and a strong power‐based culture. Shows that a well‐managed learning contract process can significantly increase the value of supervisory development and help to facilitate more consensus‐ and collaborative‐based approaches to problem solving and encourage learning in the ongoing work activities of the organization.

The problem of this study was: (a) to determine the degree of agreement between teacher perceptions of actual and preferred supervisory behavior in Montana public schools during the 1978–1979 school year; and (b) to relate differences between actual and preferred supervisory behavior to the degree of teacher satisfaction with supervision. The major findings of the study were that: (a) responses to a few of the items were dependent either on sex, or teaching level, or years of teaching experience; (b) many Montana teachers would prefer to experience more often thirty‐one supervisory practices recommended in the literature since 1970; (c) satisfaction with supervision is significantly related to the absolute values of the difference between actual score and preferred score for those same thirty‐one supervisory practices taken collectively; and (d) the absolute values of discrepancy scores for seventeen of the thirty‐one recommended supervisory practices were found to make a significant, unique contribution to the prediction of one or more of the satisfaction indices.

Since the beginning of the 20th century the authority of supervisors has decreased due to larger size of firms and power of workers' unions. Now, the supervisors' status has increased again, through automation and the necessity of a more human approach to workers' problems. This article describes these changes, looks at the job profile of supervisory activities in eight areas, considers the problems and difficulties of the supervisors' position in relation to management and the workers, and provides examples of Italian Supervisory Training in FIAT the automobile firm and ALFA the state‐controlled firm. Recent surveys show that supervisory training exists in 71 per cent of the firms, done mainly in five‐day seminars, and trainers come both from inside and outside the firms. It concludes that there are still many problems but that they are slowly being overcome.

Personal problems of employees impair their productivity. These may be family, emotional, alcohol or other drugs, or just living problems. Employee assistance is an action‐oriented programme designed to recognise symptoms of problem employees before they become costly to the employee as well as to the company. Several studies are reviewed, those by government, as well as many private agencies, concerning the effectiveness of establishing employee assistance programmes as opposed to firing and replacing employees who have personal problems that may impair their productivity and performance.

Mergers and managerial development are reshaping the contemporary corporate world. Management development can be used to reduce resistance to the merger and assist in the process of building a positive blended corporate culture. The successful merger of Allied‐Signal and Bendix Corporations is described. Key techniques included the use of an integration task force of high level executives from both companies, the use of outside consulting firms to assess and recommend consolidation efforts, cross‐sector developmental experiences for high potential managers, feedback from morale surveys and an integrated series of management development programmes. General recommendations are to sell the concept of management development to the workforce, to involve line managers and to check recommendations for objectivity. Outside expertise should be utilised, but should not be totally depended on. Quality must be the major objective.

This study aims to render a fundamental assessment of the Basel II internal ratings-based (IRB) approach by taking readings of the Australian banking sector since the implementation of Basel II and comparing them with signals from macroeconomic indicators, financial statistics and external credit ratings. The IRB approach to capital adequacy for credit risk, which implements an asymptotic single risk factor (ASRF) model, plays an important role in protecting the Australian banking sector against insolvency.

Realisations of the single systematic risk factor, interpreted as describing the prevailing state of the Australian economy, are recovered from the ASRF model and compared with macroeconomic indicators. Similarly, estimates of distance-to-default, reflecting the capacity of the Australian banking sector to absorb credit losses, are recovered from the ASRF model and compared with financial statistics and external credit ratings. With the implementation of Basel II preceding the time when the effect of the financial crisis of 2007-2009 was most acutely felt, the authors measure the impact of the crisis on the Australian banking sector.

Measurements from the ASRF model find general agreement with signals from macroeconomic indicators, financial statistics and external credit ratings. This leads to a favourable assessment of the ASRF model for the purposes of capital allocation, performance attribution and risk monitoring. The empirical analysis used in this paper reveals that the recent crisis imparted a mild stress on the Australian banking sector.

Given the range of economic conditions, from mild contraction to moderate expansion, experienced in Australia since the implementation of Basel II, the authors cannot attest to the validity of the model specification of the IRB approach for its intended purpose of solvency assessment.

Access to internal bank data collected by the prudential regulator distinguishes this paper from other empirical studies on the IRB approach and financial crisis of 2007-2009. The authors are not the first to attempt to measure the effects of the recent crisis, but they believe that they are the first to do so using regulatory data.

The purpose of this paper is to add to the significant contributions of past research by assessing what the overall effectiveness of managerial training has been over a period of 50 years and by identifying changes in overall effectiveness during this time period. Additionally, this study aims to evaluate what the overall findings on the effectiveness of training has been based on study design and subgroups focusing on the equivalent of Kirkpatrick's famous learning, behavior, and results outcomes.

This study quantitatively integrates and extends the literature on management training through a meta‐analytic procedure. The resulting sample of past research includes studies from the time period between 1952 and 2002, representing 85 interventions and 4,779 subjects.

The results do not suggest a great deal of improvement in the effectiveness of managerial training from 1952 through 2002 and effect sizes have remained moderate. Additionally, outcome subgroup appears to moderate results. Specifically, programs implemented to achieve learning outcomes tended to have the largest effect sizes and were consistently significant relative to programs targeted at behavior and results outcomes.

The implications are directly related to the selection of evaluation methods for future studies assessing the effectiveness of managerial training programs. This implication is important to both the academic community and practitioners. The limitations of this study include the possible exclusion of past research and the heterogeneity of assessment methods used in past research, beyond the broad categories of objective and subjective assessment.

In addition to identifying the moderating effect of outcomes being measured, the main contribution of this study is that it covers a large time period. As a result, the analysis offers a more expanded view of managerial training over time.

There is no doubt that the key resources of any organisation are the knowledge and skills of its people, particularly the knowledge and skill to identify and meet the needs of the market. The knowledge and skill is not acquired by magic; it is, however all too often acquired from outside the organisation instead of tapping the latent talent from within. The key to finding and developing the talent is training.

The job description “marketing accountant” is increasingly seen in job advertisements, and this paper reports the results of a study into how companies use their “marketing accountants”; what they envisage the job description to mean, and what tasks these specialists are called upon to perform.