CLOSELY OBSERVED TRAINS

Anyone approaching the subject of the training of senior staff in industry in an analytical frame of mind cannot avoid being perplexed by the lack of definition in the terms used by experts in this field. Is management training intended exclusively for managers and who precisely are ‘managers’? Training institutions run indifferently under such titles as Business School, Management Training Centre, Administrative Staff College, Executive Training Centre, Administrative Staff College, and so on. A famous business school in its brochure offers an ‘executive development programme’ to assist companies in their task in developing competent ‘managers’; a University provides both an ‘executive programme’ and a ‘senior executive programme’ for men with substantial ‘managerial’ experience. A business journal simultaneously carries advertisements for the posts of personnel officer, personnel manager, head of personnel administration, and personnel executive, all with comparable responsibilities. Confusion of terminology thus abounds.