The impact of training on virtual team effectiveness was assessed in five areas: communication, planning tasks and setting goals, solving problems and making decisions, resolving conflict, and responding to customer requirements. A 12-page survey was developed exploring all aspects of virtual teams. 180 surveys were distributed, 52 were returned representing 43 companies. Training led to higher effectiveness in planning tasks and setting goals, solving problems and making decisions, and conflict resolution, but not in communication and responding to customer requirements. Training may not solve all the problems that virtual teams will encounter; however, training will make the challenges easier to handle.

The study has a twofold purpose. The first is to determine the extent to which organized selection and training practices exist in small apparel and accessory retailing establishments, and the general attitude which small retailers of apparel and accessories express toward the value of selection and training functions. The second is to construct a practical system which can be used in small apparel and accessory retailing establishments.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the utilization of needs assessments by training and development professionals in a large metropolitan training association. The study sought to determine (1) how frequently needs assessments were used; (2) how the results of needs assessments were used; (3) whether the needs assessment model was developed by in-house staff or outside consultants; (4) whether needs assessments were utilized more frequently within specific industry groups; and (5) the respondents' perceived level of importance placed on the needs assessment process. To accomplish these objectives, this study surveyed members of the Dallas chapter of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD).

Five learning measures used in a skills training program were related to three types of job performance measures for a sample of 163 oil field employees. Statistical analyses resulted in only modest correlations between learning and job performance criteria. Factor analyses of learning measures followed by multiple regression on factors yielded a significant R with only one criterion measure. It was concluded from these data that the training program was of minimal value. The discussion centered on strategies for better training, training research, job engineering, and correcting the two limitations of this study.

Community service organizations, community college apprenticeships and organized labor have been working together to address the barriers to successful completion of apprenticeships. The barriers have been especially daunting for women and people of color. The Trades Mentor Network (TMN) grew out of a need to address this issue and to provide a means to assist at-risk apprentices to persist in the completion of their building trades apprenticeships. The purpose of this case study was to describe the TMN and to investigate the apprentice-mentor relationship to see if, in the perception of the apprentices, it was a useful retention strategy. A literature survey identified the worth of mentoring in other arenas, discussed the fate of women in nontraditional work and the relationship between community colleges and apprenticeships, and reviewed appropriate research methodology for studying this phenomenon. Participant observation, focus groups and interviews in two phases of data collection were used. Archival data contributed to the descriptions, conclusions and recommendations. The TMN and the TMN training were described. The research was limited to the study of woman apprentices. Their stories revealed their experiences as apprentices, their mentor relationship and what it was about the relationship that helped them. In the course of the study, 39 women were invited to be mentored. The 28 women who participated credited being mentored as a significant factor in their continuation or successful completion of their apprenticeship. The retention rates for woman apprentices improved. In 1991, before the TMN existed, the dropout rate for woman apprentices in Washington community and technical colleges was 50%, in 1996, the dropout rate was 12%. The TMN had an effect on the building trades culture. Woman apprentices were stronger, more confident and more expectant of a more inclusive and welcoming environment. Part of the significance of this study was to provide the data to justify the Trades Mentor Network and to convince organized labor to routinely fund it as a retention strategy for all apprentices at risk. Apprentice training is expensive and a low cost, essentially volunteer, program that reduces the risk of losing apprentices is valuable. / Graduation date: 1997

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1985.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Philosophy

M. Tech. Tourism and Hospitality Management / The tourism industry has received a great deal of attention where economic development issues are discussed. South Africa is not an exception to this trend. The country places a high premium on tourism in terms of economic growth. As the attention paid to the tourism industry has increased, attempts to resource the tourism industry through tourism education have also increased. In spite of the increased provision of tourism education, it still faces criticism for its limited ability to meet the needs of the tourism industry. Tourism employers complain about skills mismatch resulting in the inability of tourism students to perform tourism jobs once they have qualified from a tourism programme. A host of studies have investigated the content and the relevance of tourism education. However, these studies are concentrated on first world countries, particularly the United Kingdom and Australia. Very little is yet known about the South African curriculum content for tourism higher education. The primary aim of this research is to determine whether students with a National Diploma: Tourism Management meet the Human Resource requirements of tourism employers using the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) in Gauteng as a case study. TUT is a public higher education institution located in Gauteng, South Africa.

Not available / text

This study investigates the participation patterns of employer-sponsored adult education and training by Swedish workers over the period of 1975 - 1995, and evaluates the importance of the determinants of such provision. The study also explores the ways participation experiences in employer-sponsored education and training influence subsequent participation, occupational mobility and economic outcomes for Swedish workers. Data collected from 1975 to 1995 in The Swedish Living Conditions Survey (ULF), both the cross-sectional data and its panel component, have been analyzed. Contained in the panel are 3,319 Swedish adults who have been followed up in the ULF from 1979 to 1995. The study employs measures of work and job characteristics such as indicators of occupational status, wage, union membership, length of employment, job type, job responsibilities, influence on decision-making at the workplace, learning opportunities at the workplace, enterprise ownership, as well measures of personal characteristics, such as age, gender, level of formal education. The approach taken in the evaluation of the influences of work, job and demographic characteristics on the likelihood of receiving employer-sponsored education and training has been to develop and estimate logistic regression models by means of which these effects during different periods (1975, 1979, 1986/7, 1994/5) can be assessed and compared. Another three models have been investigated, using the panel data, namely: (1) a logistic regression model predicting subsequent participation in employer-sponsored education and training by similar experiences at earlier career stages; (2) a multiple regression model predicting 1994/5 annual income with participation history as a predictor; (3) a discriminant function analytical model predicting 1994/5 occupational status with participation history as a discriminating variable. The departure point of this study is that separate analyses have been done with the public sector and private sector sub-data sets. The findings indicate that occupational status, level of education, age, gender and to a less extent, union membership, and other work and job characteristics are the more important predictors of the likelihood of participation in employersponsored education and training for the Swedish workers in the private sector. For those working in the public sector, institutional factors relating to management style and job responsibility as well as age play an important part in training decisions. The findings also indicate that youth and older age groups, particularly those with the private sector, have been consistently under-served by provision of employer-sponsored education and training throughout the period investigated. The results reveal that by the mid-1990s, gender was not a issue in the public sector in terms of the participation rate but female workers were still disadvantaged in the private sector. The findings verify a trend that the participation gaps between the well-educated and the undereducated, and those between professionals and non-skilled and semi-skilled have narrowed by a great magnitude, yet not adequately to close up the gaps. In 1975, the likelihood of participation for a professional worker was nine times as high as that for a non-skilled worker in the private sector. By 1995, the comparable figure was three times. The findings from panel data analysis show that, for workers in the private sector, their participation status as of the mid-1990s was significantly correlated with their participation status back in the mid-1980s and late 1970s, even after the statistical adjustment. For the public sector employees, their participation status as of the mid-1990s is related to participation status in the mid-1980s only. The results of income estimation models show that all three indicators of participation status are significantly associated with higher earnings, but a further analysis that separates the private sector from the public sector indicates that the result applied more in the case of the private sector employees. In contrast, none of the measures of participation status are significantly associated with higher earnings for employees with the public sector. The findings, as a result of discriminant function analysis, indicate that participation undertaken in the mid- 1980s, together with the earlier status of occupation and formal education background, form the first discriminant function that classify occupational status of 1994/5, explaining 54% of the explained variance.