Leopold Petrus Vermeulen

Is Management Development Worth the Effort

The article examines theprerequisitesfor the successful implementation of a management development programme, and then describes a comprehensive management development programme implemented in a large South African financial institution over a period of two years. Despite careful adherence to the prerequisites, the programme failed. The authors come to the conclusion that thefailure was due to: • Major changes in the organisation structure during the implementation of the management development programme • Lack of follow-up development activities, despite a commitment from top management to do so • Poor management practices by top management The authors draw a distinction between manager development and man agement development, and suggest that the former without the latter is not really worth the effort.

The Development of a Measure to Assess Perceptions of the Advanced Aircraft Training Climate

Training attitudes and airline pilots’ specific learning experiences are antecedents, which affect human behavior on the flight deck in various ways. This article reports on the development and psychometric evaluation of a scale to assess aviators’ perceptions of the training environment associated with technologically complex advanced aircraft. A sample of 229 airline pilots provided data to explore the latent structure of the hypothesized research construct. Principal axis factor analysis produced a 3-factor model consisting of organizational professionalism, intrinsic motivation, and individual control of training outcomes, with highly acceptable Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients.