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individuals and organisations, and rarely are the implicit assumptions that support it given significant attention (Hopfl and Dawes, 1995). Managers are generally regarded as a critical resource that hold the key to unlocking the potential in all other factors of production, and this sentiment is echoed in a number of national and international reports, Garavan et al. (1999). Many reports in the past have been critical of deficiencies in the process of MD within organisations and even linked the decline in competitiveness of American industry to the effects of the classical paradigm of business education and its influence on the attitudes and practices of US business school graduates.

There has also been concern expressed regarding the reliance placed on traditional conventional approaches to MD, particularly when faced with structural, political and cultural barriers that may have failed to deliver the anticipated outcomes. Mumford (1993 p. 100) comments that “any MD process which places emphasis on discrete activities, organised thinking processes, neatness and freedom of choice, is likely to be out of synchronisation with the reality of managing that managers today engage in”. Lees (1992) offers, and critiques, a set of ten rationales for management development, the functional performance rationale is by far the most popular rationale for management development; to directly improve managerial functioning and thereby corporate performance, in fact for many it is the only rationale. At the individual manager level, the intention may be pro-active by imparting new knowledge, skills or attitudes, or it may be remedial by trying to eliminate identified weaknesses. At the group level it may seek technical or social change in particular functions or at different levels, or even large scale change across the entire organisation, thus creating a fusion between management development and organisation development. And at the national level, as exhorted by a succession of reports into management education and development, the aim is to create a supply of sufficiently trained and developed managers to improve corporate competitiveness and aid national economic recovery.

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According to Garavan et al. (1999) however MD can also be driven by rationales which reflect social, political, emotional, legitimatory, psychic or symbolic concerns. There is little exploration of these rationales in the literature even though, “ such rationales are far from insignificant in that their role in making managers feel whole, rather than simply corporate functionaries with enhanced competencies, is considerable”. Management development theory is part of a wider family of theories each contributing building-blocks which help to explain key dimensions of the way managers are typically developed in organisations. Ultimately these relate to the basic social science disciplines of economics, psychology and sociology. In the economic domain human capital theory provides a rationale for development while labour market theory focuses on the way in which managers as employees provide a resource for organizations. In terms of psychology, learning theory draws attention to the cognitive and processual sides of skill formation, while sociology informs organization theory and human resource strategy in dealing with the role of development in an organizational context. Despite this however attempts to build coherent management development theory have been rare, Thomson et al. (2001 p. 33).

“Some organizations offer absolutely nothing in the way of MD - no individual reviews, no plans for individual development, no annual review of succession, no nominations for courses whereas others provide a full range of formal opportunities. Inevitably, many organizations fall in the middle, providing something but not everything, or providing for lower-level managers but not for the most senior “.

Doyle, (2000 p 100)

As managers are required to rapidly set and achieve new productivity, quality and effectiveness standards, develop and implement new strategies, and change and sustain new corporate cultures (Harrison, 2002) for the whole organisation. The MD process is a potentially powerful ‘strategic tool’ for achieving desired organizational outcomes and effective individual performance (Luoma, 2005). One of the major changes in MD, over the last 30 years has been the recognition that it is most effective when it matches the strategy or mission of an organisation, and indeed is developed and implemented in order to facilitate the implementation and success of that strategy. Although there are now doubts about the effectiveness of some of the more mechanical, strategic and business planning processes favoured from the 1970s through to the mid-1990s, the idea

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that an organisation ought to establish a clear statement of where it wants to get to and how it will get there is still fundamental to good management. How the strategy is defined and implemented is, of course, a management development issue! In attempting to define the concept of management development, different authors have tried to provide explanations of what it aims to achieve and the process used to secure these objectives. There are a number of approaches to MD Mumford (1997) described three different types of approaches that are broadly representative of current interventions:

The Type One approach is ‘informal managerial’ or accidental process which is not planned in advance, has no clear development objectives, occurs within manager’s activities, unstructured in development terms and owned by managers. Such kind of an approach has no real learning goal with insufficient development consequences.

The Type Two approach is ‘integrated managerial’ or opportunistic process which occurs within managerial activities with explicit intention where both task performance and development has clear developmental objectives. This form of approach is structured for development, planned beforehand and/or reviewed subsequently as learning experiences are gathered by learners and, owned by managers.

The Type Three approach is where ‘formalised development’ takes place in a planned fashion, very often away from normal managerial activities with explicit intention of development, clear development objectives, planned beforehand or reviewed subsequently as learning experiences and owned more by developers than managers.

A number of MD programmes implicitly seek to demonstrate a concern for gestalt approaches to management development/self-development, Hopfl & Dawes (1995). However, in practice this may gloss over the conflicts and contradictions which exist at the heart of this relationship by tacitly assuming a commonality between the individual’s development and the organisation’s needs. There have been say Mumford & Gold (2004 p. 248) an “influence of complexity in a number of recent approaches to management and learning”. Watson and Harris (1999) argue that managers needed to take a more process-oriented view of organisations and their own positions as managers. There is now an approach advocating a process of continuous movement which instead of focusing on the idea of fixed things, like teams, the department, the business, or even

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the self as manager, states there is a need to see everything as a process where a person performing a management role, managing, is never a fixed entity with permanent features such as static and unchangeable skills and competences. Simultaneously organisations become more difficult to understand as ordered entities, designed for a particular purpose such as profits or serving the public. Organisations are always composed of people who through ongoing interaction carry out meaningful activities which may or may not correspond with the purposes of senior management. Over the last 15 years, there has been a significant shift towards more informal, on-the-job, action learning approaches to management development. According to Mabey and Finch-Lees (2008) there are a number of reasons for this shift, “…including the de- layering of organizations, the withdrawal of centralized HR. career management, cost- cutting, more entrepreneurial styles of management and the advent of more transactional psychological contracts between employer and employee”.

Mabey and Finch-Lees (2008) also highlight the need to identify national approaches to MD and point out that the extent of isomorphic tendencies in management practices, arising from the pressures of global integration, will vary in different national contexts. Although practice and priorities differ widely, certain approaches to management development are found to significantly improve organisational performance, irrespective of national setting (Mabey 2004). However while the majority of imported Western models of management development are based on techniques such as group discussion and classroom participation, with an emphasis on reflection and abstract reasoning and a free and open critique and challenge of ideas and assumptions (Doyle 2001). The Chinese models of management development and training are teacher- centred, culturally bound and politically oriented, making it fundamentally different from the learner-centred approach of western countries (Branine 2005). In the opinion of Gagnon (2008) there are two main models of management development emerging, the first is where anxiety and competition are built in, amounting to an aggressive attempt at alignment of participants in order to increase (organisational) security; and the other is based on developmental paternalism, with an edge of stress and pressure to ensure the appropriate performance of employees.

Most organisations have now accepted the fact that it is essential to recognise that MD is more than a tactical or knee-jerk response to a skills gap and are increasingly using it as part of a wider strategy to achieve their longer-term aspirations (Mabey & Finch-

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Lees 2008). The most widely proposed method of achieving these aspirations is to embrace best practice and the three main features of this include facilitating strategic change, building learning organisations and creating intercultural competency. This is why HRD managers, with the need to develop their leaders, turn to ‘off—the-shelf solutions’ which are readily available and promoted by best-practice. There is a case for adopting a competency-based approach which is almost synonymous with progressive or best-practice management development. Furthermore 360-degree feedback as best-practice might be attributed to a number of changes in the way organisations operate and is probably of particular relevance where objective outcome criteria are difficult to measure, such as in the development of management and leadership capabilities (Day, 2001). There is a strong desire by many developing countries to import Western (mainly Anglo-Saxon) conceptions and models of management development and utilise them as powerful tools in their quest for social and economic transformation and renewal. It must be noted however that although these models are considered to be in a dominant position efforts to import them by different countries have not been entirely successful. This is true in Europe for instance were MD needs to be conceived and implemented in a way that is distinct from any of the national models that currently exist Lorbiecki (1993). While researching potential identification and development of managers at major European corporations, four types of management development were identified by Evans (2002) see Table 4.2.

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Table 4.2: Models for Leadership Identification

Source: Evans et al. (2002 p. 100)

 The ‘Latin’ or elite political with a propensity for senior managers to privilege ‘political games’ over bureaucratic rules when it comes to promoting managers to top positions; an emphasis on hiring high-potentials rather than developing an internal pool of managers with the help of various training and development tools.

 The ‘Germanic’ or functional model characterized by the internalization of the competency-building process and an internal labour market perspective.

 The ‘Anglo-Saxon’ MNC model characterized by the market-like nature of managerial job opportunities (typified by the USA and the UK).

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 The Japanese or elite cohort model which relies on heavily filtered recruitment of potential managers from the top universities.