Management development in New Zealand

Purpose To give an overview of prevalent views on and practices in management development in New Zealand Design/methodology/approach Employs a questionnaire, mainly Likert‐scale, to interview human resource managers and line managers in 86 companies in New Zealand. The research model and instrumentation is based on existing research on management development in Europe. Findings Many of the tensions and inconsistencies exhibited between assumptions and practices and a variance of views indicate that at national level management development is rather incoherent and further research would be justified. For example, it is widely assumed that experience makes a good manager, but mentoring is rated lower than external courses as a source of development. There are often substantial disparity of views between HR managers and line managers. Practical implications Firms wishing to develop coherent management development processes could be guided by the disparities revealed in this research. Originality/value This research is the first step towards international comparative data on management development for New Zealand, and the model allows for direct comparison with existing European data.