When and how should training evaluation information be presented to managers?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Student could present some of this information: Mattson (2003) demonstrated convincingly that training-program evaluations that are expressed in terms of results do influence the decisions of operating managers to modify, eliminate, continue, or expand such programs. He showed that variables such as organizational cultural values (shared norms about important organizational values), the complexity of the information presented to decision makers, the credibility of that information, and the degree of its abstractness/concreteness affect managers’ perceptions of the usefulness and ease of use of the evaluative information.
Other research has shed additional light on the best ways to present evaluation results to operating managers. To enhance managerial acceptance in the Morrow et al. (1997) study described earlier, the researchers presented the utility model and the procedures that they proposed to use to the CEO, as well as to senior strategic planning and HR managers, before conducting their research. They presented the model and procedures as fallible, but reasonable, estimates. As Morrow et al. (1997) noted, senior management’s approval prior to actual application and consideration of utility results in a decision-making context is particularly important when one considers that nearly any field application of utility analysis will rely on an effect size calculated with an imperfect quasi-experimental design.