Management development in a context of drastic changes

Growing competition and globalisation have led to massive changes in the approaches of traditional management systems and techniques. Often this needs a radically different way of organising activities, recruiting and developing people, and measuring performances and results. In this article, the focus is on the specific challenges of organising management development in a situation of turbulence and drastic change. After a short sketch of the historical context, some current trends and challenges are explored; the role of strategic re‐orientations, the emphasis on the individual, the role of competencies and the significance of demographic changes. In order to see how management development is organised in companies that have seen drastic organisational change, we investigated the most recent approaches of management development in two large Belgian companies. In our conclusion, we stress the importance of fine‐tuning the objectives between individual and organisation in a creative and long‐term‐oriented perspective.