Henley Working Paper
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EVALUATING MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT
JOHN KENWORTHY
(HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT)
Dr. John Kenworthy
www.celsim.com
Henley Working Paper
2
EVALUATION
BACKGROUND
There are several issues involved in evaluating management development, more so when the
evaluation also considers the method of management development that this paper explores.
Through a review of the literature, this paper will address the high level issues and establish
the basis for a suitable model of evaluation that will measure the effectiveness of the
method(s) employed in a managerial development intervention or event.
The paper commences by reviewing why we should evaluate; what should be evaluated; and
lastly how to evaluate. The paper then considers suitable models and methods of evaluation to
measure the effectiveness of a management development intervention and the method
employed in undertaking the intervention with particular reference to experiential learning
and the use of computer-based simulations during a training intervention.
WHY EVALUATE
A number of authors consider the need and reasons for evaluation though all tend to fall into
four broad categories identified by Mark Easterby-Smith (Easterby-Smith, 1994). He notes
four general purposes of evaluation (P14):
1. Proving: the worth and impact of training. Designed to demonstrate conclusively that
something has happened as a result of training or developmental activities.
2. Improving: A formative purpose to explicitly discover what improvements to a
training programme are needed
3. Learning: Where the evaluation itself is or becomes an integral part of the learning of
a training programme
4. Controlling: Quality aspects in the broadest sense, both in terms of quality of content
and delivery to established standards.
More recent literature uses different terminology which can be placed into these four broad
categories:
Russell (1999) does not include such a Learning purpose explici