Balancing European SME Managers’ Training Contents: Perceived Importance & Training Needs

• Authors: Leonel Morgado , João Varajão , Caroline Dominguez , Irene Oliveira , Fernanda Sousa
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Background: Given the limited available time of in-service professionals, the balance between the perceived importance of the course content and training needs is essential for the acceptance and attractiveness of training courses aimed at them. Objectives: The goal of the paper is to contribute to the development of entrepreneurship and business training programs for European SME managers. Methods/Approach: In six European countries a survey focusing on SME managers’ views on the importance of individual items from a list of potential course content items, and their training needs was carried out, and followed by an analysis using exploratory and multivariate techniques. It was aimed at identifying homogeneous groups of managers with common training needs and perceptions of content importance. Results: Homogeneous groups of managers who assign the same importance to certain competences and who have common training needs are identified. Conclusions: Results of our research could help training institutions to develop courses aimed at SME managers. The balancing approach proved to be an interesting method of combining conflicting requirements for the training course curriculum development.

Keywords

EN

SME; managers; business; competences; curriculum development; exploratory multivariate techniques; A29

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Business Systems Research Journal
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 5
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 4-22

Dates

received

2014-02-02

accepted

2014-05-18

online

2014-09-10

Contributors

author

Leonel Morgado

• Universidade Aberta, Portugal

author

João Varajão

• Centro ALGORITMI/University of Minho, Portugal

author

Caroline Dominguez

• University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal

author

Irene Oliveira

• University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal

author

Fernanda Sousa

• Universidade do Porto, Portugal

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/bsrj-2014-0007