The Effectiveness of Management Development in Australia

A research program supported by CEDA,the Australian Human Resources Institute and the Mt Eliza Business school aimed to identify the factors most closely associated with effective management development. That research included surveys of 206 managers in 153 organisations.

The result: ten years after the landmark Karpin report criticised the quality of Australian managers, the research by D'Netto and Bakas found that current management development is still not living up to its potential. But the nature of the problem has changed.

The problem identified by Karpin - the quality and quantity of management programs - is well on its way to being fixed. Today, say D'Netto and Bakas, it is the way employers approach management development that threatens to hold managers back. To be effective, management development must be linked to corporate strategy, it must be systematic, and organisations must allow managers to apply skills learned in development programs. By and large, this is not happening - or at least not enough to ensure organisations are getting maximum benefit from development programs.

Dr D'Netto discusses his report in an interview for CEDA - click here.