英语论文网

BR>resource development specialists to chart the future of management
training and development in the Arab world, and to consider the themes
that will dominate at this new millennium. Admittedly, MTD in the
Arab countries, in general, and in Jordan, in particular, has been a subjectof increasing interest and debate in recent years (Al-Faleh, 1990;
Atiyyah, 1993; Weir, 1994; Abu-Doleh, 2000). However, few would
disagree that one of the most critical challenges facing the developing
countries is the training and development of their managers. In contrast,
in the developed countries it appears to be an increased recognition of
the efficacy of MTD as strategies to improve organizational effectiveness
and competitiveness. This is consistent with the notion that managers
can, and do, have significant impact on organizational effectiveness
and efficiency. Therefore, assessment of managers’ training and developmentneeds will help in making the training programmes more target
oriented. In doing this, all training efforts will be geared towards the
same end result of increasing the organization’s efficiency and effectiveness.
In this paper, the research aim is to investigate the practices of
managers’ training and development need assessment adopted by the
108 Islam and Business: Cross-Cultural and Cross-National Perspectives
Jordanian private and public organizations. The assessment of managers’
training needs come at the beginning of any MTD design programme.
This is important, because training need assessment is basic to
exposing the gap between what is happening and what ought to be happening
in terms of managerial performance. It determines whether a gap
exists between the requirements of a job and the skills of the managers
who perform it. As a result, an accurate needs assessment enables the
limited training budget to be directed more specifically towards achievingorganizational strategy. However, the distinction between organizationalneeds, operational needs and managers’ needs should be takeninto account in order to design acceptable MTD programmes that fit theneeds of both the organization itself and its human assets.
LITERATURE REVIEW
In the developed countries,MTD needs assessment has received substantial
and ongoing contributions from the disciplines of education,
psychology and management and, as a result, is perhaps the most multidisciplinaryfield in the management training and development area.
Also, the Arab states have been aware of the positive impact of managementtraining and development on organizational effectiveness, economicand social development and, as a result, the 1980s were declared
by these states as “the decade of administrative development’’ (Zoubi,
1982). Despite the Arab states’ recognition of the important role of
management training and development to organizational effectiveness,
very little empirical research about value-added MTD programmes has
been conducted (Abdalla and Al-Homoud, 1995; Abu-Doleh, 1996;
Abu-Doleh and Weir, 1997). As far as Jordan is concerned, MTD has
recently become an important issue in both the private and public organizations.
Despite this concern, very little empirical research has been
conducted on managers’ training and development need assessment.
Therefore, this study will attempt to survey current MTD need assessment
practices adopted by the Jordanian private and