The development of a framework for management development in the Libyan oil sector : A case study of the upstream oil companies

Due to increased globalisation of markets and liberalisation of local economies, businesses all over the world are developing increasingly competitive strategies. Management development is central to the success of these strategies. Therefore there is an increasing interest in management development and human resources development in Libya. The hope being that these forms of development can improve, and upgrade, the performance of Libyan human resources to achieve the required level of effectiveness, and to attain competitiveness in the world economy. The main objectives of this research are to develop the framework to implement management development programmes and to analyse the current management development practices in Libyan organisations and explore the extent to which transference of Western management development practices, if such transference is possible, has in fact occurred. The study carried out was essentially an evaluation to assess the value of management development; the specific focus of this evaluation was on two comparative cases in the Libyan oil Industry. The research project was carried out in the oil sector which has a particular importance to Libya’s economic prosperity and should be the first place that management development takes place, but equally would be the best place for the transfer of Western management practice to occur. A case study design was used which involved an empirical investigation of a particular contemporary phenomenon within its real life context using multiple sources of evidence. The main data collection tool was a questionnaire which meant that all the completed responses could be collected within a short period of time and any initial doubts that the respondents might have on any question were clarified on the spot. This also allowed the introduction of the research topic and meant the respondents could be motivated to offer their frank answers. Telephone interviews were used in retrospectively to gather specific information regarding management development within the companies which allowed triangulation. Reliability analyses using Cronbach’s alpha as well as univariate analysis were carried out as were multivariate analyses such as factor analysis (FA) and multiple logistic regression. The non parametric Mann-Whitney test was used to evaluate the association between the instruments (scale). The results of this study show that there is no priority given to manager development at a strategic level in either of the companies. There is no senior endorsement of management development via a written management development policy and no systematic mechanisms for accurately diagnosing group/individual training needs nor any evaluation processes to ensure training remains high quality and business-focused in place at Waha or Repsol either. The Libyan environment and Arab culture have negative effects on perceptions of training in general, and management development in particular, which leads to no serious attention being given to the implementation of management development activities.