International Journal of Contemporary Business Studies

International Journal of Contemporary Business StudiesVol: 3, No: 4. May, 2012 ISSN 2156-7506Available online at http://www.akpinsight.webs.comc. Overall Effectiveness of Outward Bound Training ProgrammesIn order to measure the overall effectiveness of the OBT programme a composite index wasdeveloped using the weighted average of the scale data. The weight under each of the outcomewas calculated taking the summation of scales under one particular outcome as a proportion ofthe grand total of the scale measures for all twelve outcomes. A similar composite index wasdeveloped to measure the contribution of the other HRD programmes to develop the same set ofoutcomes. The two indices were then compared and the results are shown in Table 5.Table 5. ANOVA of OBT vs. HRDIndividual 95% CIs For Mean Based on Pooled StDevLevel Mean StDev --------+---------+---------+---------+-index of OBT 3.8060 0.5739 (----*----)index of other HRD 2.6573 0.6735 (---*----)--------+---------+---------+---------+-2.80 3.20 3.60 4.00Note: (P < 0.000) with adjusted r2 = 0.364 , Pooled StDev = 0.625The results clearly indicate that there is a significant difference between the two outcome indices.The contribution of the OBT programmes to develop the expected outcomes considered in thestudy is much higher than the contribution from the other HRD programmes.d. Factors Influencing the Success of OBT Programmes.In order to examine the factors influencing the success of OBT programmes, factors such as age,gender, education, professional qualifications, work experience, number of trainings attended,number of trainees per group, number of instructors in a group, group composition and durationof the training were regressed against the composite indices of the individual participants. Theresults of the multiple regression is presented in Table 6.According to the regression results, despite the regression model being significant none of thedemographic variables or variables related to OBT programmes were found to be significant.Implying that the outcomes of the OBT programmes are not significantly influenced byparticipants’ demographics or programme related factors considered in this study.b. Findings from the Case StudiesCase studies were conducted with six organizations representing the banking sector, financialinstitutions, higher educational institutions, manufacturing organizations, hotel sector andnongovernmental organizations. These selected organizations represented large, medium andsmall scale organizations.The case studies were conducted through semi structured interviews with the use of a semistructured interview schedules. In addition to the close ended questions, the questionnairecontained many open ended questions to facilitate in-depth discussions with the respondent HRmanagers from the selected organizations.The number of levels in the organizational hierarchy varied from five to twelve in the selectedorganizations. All the organizations except the university had obtained the services of theOutward Bound Trust of Sri Lanka which is the only accredited institution to offer OBTprogrammes under the guidance of the Outward Bound International despite the availability of47Copyright © 2012. Academy of Knowledge Process