Types Of Development Programs Research Articles

Comparison of group and individual soft skills development programs -

Competitive pressures are increasing demands on managerial performance and, thus, on creating effective management development programs. The purpose of this study was to compare group and individual approaches to developing line and middle managers. The Managerial Tools and Managerial Training Simulator programs were used, with 256 managers participating. We examined the following five soft management skills: effective goal setting, giving feedback and evaluating performance, accepting feedback as a manager, management coaching, and leading discussions and team meetings using a facilitative leadership style. After both types of development programs, both groups of managers showed improvements in developing skills as assessed by their subordinates. At the first measurement, individual and group development resulted in the same positive increase in subordinates' perceptions. However, in terms of a long-term effect (the second measurement), this positive increase was maintained for the individual development programs but not group programs, where it decreased. Thus, the effect of the individual development programs appears to be longer-term. Overall, we found no significant difference between line and middle managers - both groups responded similarly to the development activities. Regarding developing individual skills, the smallest change was found in the ability to set goals and provide feedback. The most considerable change was the ability to accept feedback, coach, and facilitate. This research provides information for specialists in education and development and may help select appropriate leadership development tools, particularly for individual programs with longer-term impacts.

Organization of school leaders' training abroad: approaches to training and guidance

The article provides an overview of the organization of the school leaders professional development in a number of foreign countries. The official requirements for persons wishing to become school leaders abroad are described: teaching experience, administrative experience, experience as a supervisor, special training and education. It is shown that the level of professionalism of the school head varies from country to country and different types of development programmes are offered. Countries' approaches to training and supporting school principals are divided into: a) pre-service or preparatory training, b) induction training, c) in-service training. All three types of training are discussed in detail with examples from selected countries (Great Britain, Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, Austria, etc.).

Leadership development programs for health care middle managers: An exploration of the top management team member perspective.

Hospitals throughout the United States establish leadership and management programs for their middle managers. Despite their pervasiveness and an increased emphasis on physician leadership, there is limited research regarding the development programs designed for clinical and nonclinical health care middle managers. Using two theoretical lenses, signaling and institutional theory, this exploratory study investigates mid-sized hospital development programs from the perspective of top management team (TMT) members. Our objective is to find out what types of programs hospitals have, how they are developed, and how they are evaluated. We conducted semistructured interviews with 13 TMT members in six purposefully selected hospitals and matched these interviews with program curricula. Careful coding of the data allowed us not only to show our data in a meaningful visual representation but also to show the progression of the data from raw form to aggregate themes in the qualitative research process. We identified four types of development programs used in the selected hospitals: (a) ongoing series, (b) curriculum-based, (c) management orientation, and (d) mentoring. Challenges existed in aligning the need for the program with program content. Communication occurred both through direct messaging regarding policies and procedures and through hidden signals. TMT members referenced other programs for guidance but were not always clear about what it is they wanted the programs to accomplish. Finally, there was limited program outcome measurement. Our small sample indicates that specific, structured, and comprehensive programs perform best. The better programs were always trying to improve but that most needed better accountability of tracking outcomes. In setting up a program, a collaborative approach among TMT members to establish what the needs are and how to measure outcomes worked well. Successful programs also tied in their leadership development with overall employee development.

Millennium Development Goals through MNREGA

Almost all discussion on development issues all over the world are now centered around the MDG’s. It is most ambitious dream put forward by the United Nations Organization a decade ago. Since its introduction in September 2000, all the 192 countries which agreed to work hard to materialize all the MDG’s by 2015, began to introduced different types of development programmes. India too followed suit. India is on course to move forward to Inclusive Growth and achieve the targets of millennium development goals which has accelerated its pace of poverty alleviation strategies by mobilizing greater budget resources, creating time frames for quantifiable deliverables, linking, with global frameworks of action. Major strides have been made under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), is landmark legislation in India, which was enacted after a successful struggle for employment guarantee legislation. It has a direct connection with the efforts to accelerate the achievement of the MDGs and Inclusive Growth in India; efforts are on towards total eradication of poverty by 2015. MNREGA, with its Rights Based framework, is a paradigm shift from all other development programmes that were traditionally supply led. Centrally funded entirely through domestic resources, the implementation of this law is supported by a budget based on demand for employment. Apart from providing livelihood to millions of households, over the last six years, the Act has become a significant vehicle for strengthening grass root level democratic processes and regeneration of India’s depleting natural resource base. The present study is an attempt to evaluate the impact MNREGA on the welfare of poor women in rural India. Moreover, it also deals with the analysis of the performance of MNREGA in poverty alleviation and generating employment opportunities to the rural poor. MNREGA has also been able to contribute to ecological restoration through its design. Hence, the present study discusses seriously the impact of MNREGA on the employment scenario, ecological regeneration and poverty in rural areas; which are the integral parts of MDG’s. The study is focused on the women workers of MNREGA. Not only that the paper discussed the major visible and invisible impacts of MNREGA on poor women in rural areas.

Does development assistance reduce violence? Evidence from Afghanistan

Current military doctrine emphasizes the importance of development spending in reducing insurgent violence. Using data from three distinct development programs, the Afghan National Solidarity Program, USAID's Local Governance and Community Development Program, and the U.S. military's Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP), combined with military records of insurgent-initiated events, this article explores whether development aid in Afghanistan is violence-reducing. I find that overall spending has no clear effect on rebel attacks. Moreover, the type of development program most effective at reducing violence in Iraq - small CERP projects - does not appear to do so in Afghanistan. Possible reasons include troop strength, conditionality of aid, effectiveness of aid in producing benign outcomes, and measurement issues.

Forsøgs- og udviklingsprogrammer i dansk idrætspolitik

Danish sports policy is primarily aimed to support sports clubs and organizations economically and making sports facilities available to associations. Over the past three decades, however, this policy has been supplemented by state experimental and development programs. In the first wave of experimental programs in the 1980s the purpose of the programs was to stimulate experimental and innovative thinking, and the long term goal of a program was to change legislation and administration in accordance with experience of the program. Therefore, the programs were also thoroughly evaluated. Experimental and development programs were part of a decentralization ideal that can be described as communitarian. This first wave of experimental programs in the 1990s was gradually replaced by more targeted and government-controlled programs, which are more aimed at improving performance in specific areas and providing political posturing. This new type of development program is better characterized by liberal and economically oriented management ideals (New Public Management). A number of evaluations of these programs and projects show that they rarely live up to their own goals and expectations. At the same time, the evaluations are often insufficient to become wiser on the projects positive and negative experiences. At the end of the article the author suggests, that experimental and development programs to a greater extent are aimed to test – and investigate – alternative solutions to society’s diverse problems.

Rationality as a Social Construction: What Does Individual Behavior Have to Say about Development in an Amazon Community?

:This article argues that two different manifestations of rational behavior can coexist and collide in a relatively homogeneous society. In the Ticuna community of Arara in the Colombian Amazon; on the one hand, the majority of villagers tend to reach relatively lower levels of material wealth, following Polanyi’s idea of the pre-modern man (1968a; 1968b; 1968c), and also Sahlins’ (1972) idea of the original affluent man. On the other hand, community leaders and schoolteachers tend to accumulate material wealth, following Polanyi’s idea of modern-man (1968a; 1968b). These behavioral frameworks help explain the limited success of certain types of development programs in the Ticuna community.