Management Training for Small and Medium Industries: A Case Study Approach

• Main Author: Johl, Satirenjit Kaur
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 1996
• Subjects: HF5549-5549.5 Personnel Management. Employment
• Online Access: http://etd.uum.edu.my/1491/

In recent years, great emphasis has been placed by the Malaysian government on developing the skills of the managers and employees in order to input into the reaching of industralised nation status by the year 2020. Also, there is considerable interest in management training and development in the small and medium size industries.This research, examines the management training needs of small medium enterprises in terms of training content and method of delivery of the the training. The secondary aim is to utilise insights into the shortcomings of management research as a frame within which to develop an innovative methodology to reduce and/ or circumvent the shortcomings associated with management research. Therefore to fulfill both of these objectives, two case studies were conducted with understanding being built out of the development of an interview instrument and analytical framework based on derived out of li-ames of insight produced by review of relevant small business literature. Resultant case studies offer findings as a “first stage case study insight” to form the basis for on-going “firming up” process whereby a later further working together between the trainer and owner-manager can take place to strive toward depth of understanding, with the foundations of case insights being used as a basis from which to allow owner manager and trainer(or researcher) to work together to subsequently enable the owner-manager himself to identify, recognise and accept area of management difficulty and appropriate training actions to reduce those difficulties. The first case relates to small business start-up where the aim is to identify in terms of the company’s problems, potential management action which it might undertake to counter these problems and raise apparent management training issues. The second case relates to a successful “post start up” high growth small business where the aim has been to derive understanding of management actions and activities which are driving this firm’s success. Management training issues are thus raised in terms of what insight can be gained from what this business management appears to be doing right. Inherent problems are also highlighted and implications for future management training are considered. In total this research underlines the potential benefits of examining the small business in its full context and considering the firm value chain, linkages between components of the value chain and between other actors value chains(e.g suppliers, distributors etc) and the firms own emphasis is on the need to consider training through analysis of strengths and weaknesses of processes and sub processes and involving the owner manager in the actual analysis. In the final analysis transfer of “pure knowledge” by training programmes may have limited application in small firms - rather owner manager identification of weakness in particular processes or sub-processes and nurturing of appropriate corrective actions may have more credence.