Measuring the effectiveness of a management development programme for managers in an Irish engineering company

McInerney, Roisin (2016) Measuring the effectiveness of a management development programme for managers in an Irish engineering company. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.

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Abstract

Purpose:
This research outlines the effects of a management development programme on an Irish engineering organisation. The study will uncover the positive and negative aspects of the management development course and outcomes for the participating managers key management skills. This will include the managers’/future managers’ views on their own improvements and disimprovements in managing their teams; the operation director’s (whom the managers’ report to) views on their team and the Human Resource (HR) manager’s view to establish if the aims of the management course have been achieved.

Design/methodology/approach:
A qualitative case study approach in an Irish engineering company was adopted for this research. This involved interviewing 10 management development programme participants (out of a population of 42 participants from the same organisation), the HR manager and the operation director. The four-level Kirkpatrick (1979) model [reaction, learning, application and benefit] is used as the analytical framework to measure the effectiveness of the management development programme.

Findings
The main positive findings of this research were improvements in self-awareness, delegation and self-management. The Myer-Briggs personality test was of particular interest to all participants and allowed them to better understand that everyone is different and works in different ways. The participants suggested key changes to the course; they decided a follow up refresher course would re-enforce their newly acquired skills and felt it would also be helpful to receive assignments both before and after their training to solidify their new skillset. Most of the negative findings surrounded the logistics i.e. location of the course as opposed to the facilitator or content.

Research limitations/implications
The main limitations of this research were time and sample size. The researcher had six months to complete the project and, as it was a busy period within the organisation, the manager’s/future managers had limited time available to participate in the interviews.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management > Human Resource Management H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management > Human Resource Management > Performance Management
Divisions:	School of Business > Master of Arts in Human Resource Management
Depositing User:	Caoimhe Ní Mhaicín
Date Deposited:	04 Nov 2016 10:31
Last Modified:	04 Nov 2016 10:31
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/2329

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