Evaluation of MD

According to Garavan et al. (1999) evaluation is a necessary process to establish whether MD has been effective in meeting individual and organisational priorities, to enable judgements to be made about cost effectiveness, and to aid organisational learning and improvement. However despite the fact that the clarity of organisational objectives in terms of MD has led to an increased emphasis on the evaluation of return on investment, (Beddowes, 1994), systematic evaluation rarely occurs within organisations, (Doyle, 1995). There are a number of approaches to evaluation which range from, “...those that are objective, rigorous and scientific to those that are pragmatic, subjective and interpretative in orientation Garavan et al. (1999 p. 199).

It is advocated that evaluation should adopt a holistic, contextual approach, and integrate internal and external factors so that evaluation is seen to “travel with the organisation” as it learns, adapts and renews itself (Smith. 1993). Such a systematic, holistic perspective on evaluation would place greater emphasis on the extent to which development activity fits with individual needs and the organisational context. Additionally it would gauge how far new behaviours can be applied in the workplace and whether new behaviour corresponds with the espoused organisation culture and values (Mole. 1996). MD is often expected to lead to bottom-line gains and “…such expectations have led to management development generating an industry of its own throughout the world”, Mabey & Finch-Lees (2008 p. 6). Global investment in MD activity has increased markedly since it was estimated to be in the region of $37 billion some years ago (Boyatzis et al., 1996). According to Burgoyne et al. (2004) in a developed country like the UK some 20 million days per year are spent on programmed management training, a figure that could well be doubled if less formal development is taken into consideration. In France there is a legal requirement on employers to allocate 1.5 per cent of total annual payroll to vocational training, although it is the employer who decides how, and on whom, this is spent. However (Osman-Gani and Tan, 2000;

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Wang and Wang, 2006) point out that in the transitional economies of emerging nations there is a rapid game of ‘catch—up’ taking place, as governments and enterprises across all sectors seek to address their management and leadership deficiencies. The investment made on management development in these countries for individual companies ranges from several thousand US dollars up to $135,000 in Romania and up to $625,000 in Slovenia (Gudic, 2001).

Because of the level of investment and the number of days devoted to manager training there is a greater interest in discovering if these resources are well spent. The number of training days and the quantity of development budgets are only input measures and now much more importance being placed on the quality and benefits arising from MD, but such evidence about outcomes is difficult to come by, (Mabey & Finch-Lees 2008).

MD policy documents represent statements of intent rather than actual practice Gratton et al. (1999) stated nevertheless, such policy documents tend to suggest a companies considered and systematic, rather than an ad hoc, approach to the way managers are developed. These MD policy documents should refer to systems for determining training needs in the company, clearly identify the processes for managing development and in some way allude to the means for assessing its effectiveness. One of the ways of for assessing management development effectiveness in Europe and more specifically in the UK is by using appraisals, (Holden 1992; Raper et al. 1997). According to findings from Tamkin & Hillage (1999) most MD in UK companies occurred on a demand driven basis only, few companies had a clearly defined development strategy linked to organisational objectives. The most widely used form of evaluation used after training programmes were happy sheets, very few companies even set objectives for their programmes which they could then evaluate against and most significantly, although the majority of those questioned rated training evaluation as very important, only a quarter were satisfied with the methods being used to evaluate training.

For all the texts and manuals explaining how to carry out evaluation of training and development, it seems most organizations admit that investment in MD is still largely an act of faith, (Mabey & Finch-Lees 2008). These writers raise the question of why there is so little in the way of serious attempts to evaluate management development? They point out that from a purely functionalist perspective technical difficulties involved at various stages of the evaluation process would seem to provide the answer.

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In support of this case (Mabey & Finch-Lees 2008) conclude that even an imperfect evaluation is better than no evaluation at all. Another case put forward for the scarcity of evaluation of HRD initiatives, by Winterton & Winterton (2002) is the difficulty of attributing causality, they feel that:

“not only is it difficult to identify operational results that are amenable to improvement through training and development, causality is difficult to establish because often, no single factor, including training, could by itself have brought about the change that has taken place”.

Winterton & Winterton (2002 p. 148-149)

Because of these practical difficulties in measuring the effects of developing people, reported benefits are often anecdotal and confined to a single aspect of performance, Winterton & Winterton (2002).

Among MD policies that are receiving particular attention is the way in which these documents are written and formalised (Garavan, 1991) this is because such statements suggest a thoughtful rather than an ad hoc approach to developing managers. Of equal interest however is the effort expended in the diagnosis and evaluation of such activities. European countries it would seem according to the results of survey conducted by Larsen (1994) have very diverse approaches to training needs assessment with a heavy reliance on informal mechanisms. Additionally most companies in all countries surveyed indicated that the monitoring of the effectiveness of training is usually via informal feedback. There is a lack of evidence to support the case that UK companies systematically review the business benefits deriving from MD activities (Department for Education and Employment [DfEE], 1998). In the US even though there have been developments in techniques to measure business benefits deriving from MD activities, such as return on investment from training (Noe, 1999) attempts to quantify the outcomes of training appear to be confined to a few leading exemplars. There can be little doubt that any model of MD needs to, in some way, measure the extent of training and development activity and its performance impact, (Mabey 2004). Perhaps the most convenient is to measure the annual number of training days (Huselid, 1995; Koch & McGrath, 1996). This measure, however, is a blunt indicator and needs to be supplemented with more qualitative measures of the type of development undertaken, both formal and informal. The review of the literature concerning the measures available to companies setting out their MD policy document points towards,

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“…the growing use of and efficacy of what might be termed ‘best-practices’, including: care given to the diagnosis and design of training, career development opportunities and the subsequent evaluation of MD activity”

Mabey and Ramirez (2005 p. 1071)

4.3.5. Rationales, Theories, Approaches, Models and Typologies of MD