Assessing the value of corporate-sponsored management development programmes to the sponsoring company : what ’ s the research evidence ?

This paper will conduct a short literature review in order to examine the research evidence for sponsored management development programmes creating value for the sponsoring company. To do so it will survey the current approaches, methods and controversies present within the research field on this issue. It begins by positing two major types of research on this issue, normative and descriptive, before focusing the review more carefully through identification with one particular key stakeholder, the sponsoring company, and then by examining the complexities that different units of analysis in research have brought to the field. It concludes that there is no cut-and-dried ‘proof’ of the value-creation effect of any particular programme which is then transferable across all programmes, industries and contexts, but that the surrounding circumstantial evidence, with both a broader and a narrower focus, shows a highly positive relationship between management development programmes and value-add for sponsoring companies. Proving or improving? It is important at the outset to distinguish between two distinct, but related, areas of research work that has been undertaken on the issue of ‘value’ in relation to management development programmes, or human resource development (HRD), as it is often termed. These can be summarised as: Normative research This type of research is aimed at delineating how best to introduce and implement a sponsored management development programme, and what type of programme is most suitable for a particular requirement. This kind of research is often conducted under the banner strategic human resource development (SHRD). The outputs of this type of research are aimed at informing such variables as what organizational Assessing the value of corporate-sponsored management development programmes 09/10/2003 2 processes, directions of investment, and kinds of support are most correlated with success, as defined by the sponsoring organization’s strategic goals. There is now a considerable academic literature in this area, led by the work of Chris Mabey of Birkbeck College (Grieves, 2002; Lundy and Cowling, 1996; Mabey, 2003; Mabey and Salaman, 1995; Patching, 1999; Thomson, et al., 1998; Thomson, et al., 2001). One way of viewing this type of research is to see it as improving the selection and provision of management development by corporations. Descriptive research This is research aimed at describing the results of HRD programmes, and placing some ‘valuation’ on the impact which programmes have on some organisational measure, be it a financial return, a perception of value-add, or other metrics. One way of viewing this type of research is to see it as proving, or attempting to prove, the value of management development to corporations. There are clearly overlaps between the normative and descriptive areas, particularly because, in order for normative research work to take a view on what managerial policies and processes might be of most ‘value’, it must have some sense of what the relative ‘value’ has ‘proved’ to be for programmes managed by different policies. It must also be noted at this point that there is a slight tendency towards circularity of definition in some of the strategic HRD research, which somewhat muddies the picture. As a single specific example, Kessels and Harrison (1998) find that ‘external consistency’, that is, “the degree to which the perceptions of key stakeholders as to the goals and aims of the programme are aligned” (39), is the primary determinant of success for management development programmes. Yet their measure of success is based on the perceptions of major (individual) stakeholders of the programme’s impact on individuals and the business. If the major stakeholders have different views of success there will be less consistency in their answers on any particular programme (because no programme can meet ‘all’ definitions of success) leading to the definition of success in terms of consistency of views, and how consistently people rated a programme as successful defining consistency of views. This example is presented to show that to create any sound basis for normative action, some definition or description of success that is not defined in relation to that action must be posited. Assessing the value of corporate-sponsored management development programmes 09/10/2003 3 This paper therefore concentrates on research that attempts to demonstrate success and value in exactly that form, and it is the descriptive category of research mentioned above which most directly seeks to define and prove the ‘value’ of management development programmes to organizations.