Identification of management development needs: a comparison across companies of different ownership - foreign, joint venture and local in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an empirical investigation of seventy-eight human resource managers employed in seventy-eight wholly foreign-owned, foreign and local joint venture and wholly local-owned export-oriented clothing manufacturing companies in Sri Lanka. The study investigated human resource managers' views on whether organizations identify development needs of managers, and, if so, from what sources. The findings of the study shed light on the identification of management development needs and on differences across companies of different ownership. The data revealed evidence of the existence of the identification of development needs of managers in the industry. Organizational strategies, succession plans and performance appraisal give rise to identify development needs of managers, other than requests from both heads of divisions/immediate superior managers who like their subordinates to be developed and managers themselves who desire to develop. Further, the results of the analysis of variance revealed that in certain aspects there are significant differences in the identification of development needs of managers. The results and implications of the findings are discussed.