Home > News > May 2005 > 09-May-2005

New research looks at attitudes to ROI among business school users

Ashridge Business School has published the results of its research amongst business school users on attitudes to evaluating return on investment within executive education.

The results show that only a small minority of organisations now regularly evaluate other than at the level of individual participant reactions. Only 11% evaluate the impact at the organisational level and only 3% regularly assess the financial return on investment (ROI) of executive programmes.

The research, “Executive education: evaluating the return on investment? Bringing the client voice into the debate”, was carried out amongst HR professionals and programme sponsors (CEOs, managing directors) on behalf of UNICON (International University Consortium for Executive Education).

Bob Stilliard, Director of Executive Education at Ashridge said: "Previous research on evaluation has been very academic and so we wanted to know what business school clients really think. The research provides a picture of a complex marketplace, with a wide range of views and needs."

According to the research, whilst over half the respondents are happy with their current evaluation approaches, the majority of human resources professionals (85%) believe that evaluation of executive education programmes will become more important in the next three years. There is an increasing expectation that the value of activities needs to be demonstrated, with 88% of HR respondents and 69% of sponsors agreeing that "HR professionals will have to get better at proving the worth of executive education in the future." Two thirds of both groups concur that "Other functions have proved that 'intangible' benefits can be measured, so that same should be true of executive education."

However, the research found some disagreement over the role and nature of evaluation, particularly between the HR profession and sponsors. More sponsors (44%) than HR professionals (32%) agreed with the statement, "If there is clear evidence that individuals have benefited from a programme, that is enough to prove a positive return on investment."

The research suggests that there seems to be more pressure in the public than the private sector to try for the 'holy grail' of financial ROI. In response to the statement "Calculating the financial return on investment in executive education is so difficult it is rarely worth doing", only around half as many public sector HR respondents (14%) as private sector HR respondents (26%) agreed with the statement.

The survey also asked clients about research they would like to see from business schools in evaluation, including the development of methods to calculate financial ROI. While only 8% of sponsors chose this option, 27% of HRD respondents did so. The clear majority of sponsors (61%) said they would like business schools to focus research on "Understanding the factors in the organisational climate that influence how well participants can apply and transfer learning from executive programmes."

"Business schools should be encouraged to respond to the significant interest in this topic and work closely with organisations to develop a greater understanding of how the potential value of executive education can be maximised," said Stilliard.

Training and development books

Discover books on a variety of training and development topics at the Training Reference Bookshop

Source suppliers

Visit the Training Reference Directory to view supplier details for a wide range of courses, products and services.

Sponsored links

Back to top