Australia’s Karpin report: new priorities for management development?

A major report on management development in Australia raises new questions about how it will be implemented. Many factors have been found to contribute to the successful implementation of new policies and programmes. One of the keys to successful programmes of change management development is the involvement of managers in action learning. Uses a content analysis methodology to examine the coherence among the Karpin report’s recommendations and the research evidence to support them. Examines two levers for change ‐ cultural diversity and management learning ‐ as case studies for future management development programmes, using action learning. Suggests that action learning, as a cyclical, management‐development process, could be used to: review their (implicit) models of change; use a problem‐based methodology and check out the types of interventions that are planned for implementation action, and then consider what they learnt from implementing the report’s recommendations. Uses case study data from one industry to develop a model of implementation of a report through action learning.