ijcrb.webs.com INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS NOVEMBER 2013 VOL 5, NO 7 Abstract

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1 Relationship management training to improve the performance of individual public managers in Yazd Seyed Mohammad Reza Madani Department of Public Administration, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University Yazd Hasan Dehghan Dehnavi Faculty ofislamic Azad University,Yazd. Hoseyn Eslami Faculty member of Islamic Azad University Meybod Abstract This study seeks to examine the relationship between management training and the individual performance of the government managements of Yazd. The population is composed of the middle managers of the government offices of Yazd province. Using simple random sampling, 107 ones has been selected as the sample. The management training and individual performance have been employed as the independent and dependent variables, respectively. The required data is gathered from a questionnaire with the reliability coefficient of calculated by Chronbach s alpha. The collected data is analyzed by SPSS software and the acceptability of the empirical model is analyzed and five hypotheses have been developed. It was found that there is no significant (direct) association between management training and individual performance of the government managers of Yazd. Keywords: Management Training, Individual Performance, Government Managers Introduction The incremental improvement of the knowledge and technology established different organizational structures in comparison with the prior structure. Any organization has changed the internal communicative channels consistent with these changes. The successful organization is the organization directed towards the further improvements (Behrangi, 1992). In doing so, training proficient managers is one of the improvements in human resources and the role of the training is among the most significant topics. Today, the statesmen and the experts consider the management training as a useful investment and a key factor of development. The fair and efficient implementation of the plans might have an essential role in any country. Management training is a strategic function resulting in the development and improvement at the organizational level and the increase in productivity at the individual level. Training period aims to improve the managerial performance, enhance the technological skills of the managers and their abilities in terms of the knowledge improvements in planning, organizing, directing and monitoring (Shokri, 2005). Any government is essentially required to interact with the update knowledge. Today, the lives of the organizations depend on the informed, creative and capable managers. This is the reason for the inevitable training of the managers during the services and the government plans to conduct training periods. In addition to the payment of the fees, the managers also spend a lot of time to be trained. It seems necessary to examine the role of the training periods in increasing knowledge and efficiency of the state managers of Yazd. 129

2 Literature Review The economists believe that the human resources of a company are the main factors in developing the economics and social topics. The human resources aggregate the funds, exploit the natural resources, create economical and social and political organizations and finally increase the national development. The country in which the skills and knowledge of the individuals are not developed, the national economy is not capable of efficient exploitation (Shariatmadari, 1994). Empowerment of the Human Resources Based on the prior findings, the necessity of the continuous and planned training has been confirmed and the managers must highly consider them in the scientific and technological improvements. It must be noted that the training costs are not classified as the period costs of the organization; however, they should be categorized as the capital expenditures aimed to have long-term influences. Human resources are considered as the fundamental origins and are known as the reasons of innovation and evolution. Human being is a variable existence with several capabilities which should be converted from the potential items into present cases (Imami, 2012). Empowerment of the Managers The studies conducted in the former management and planning organization confirm that the managers of the recent years have been relatively becoming familiar with the definitions and concepts of the scientific management. However, these studies suggested that the knowledge of the managers has not been considered as an essential expertise in the administration of the affairs. Empowerment of the Managers The prior studies argue that the managers of the countries are becoming relatively familiar with the scientific definitions and concepts; however, this field of study has not been much considered in the affairs. As a result, training plans have tangible distance from the expected efficiency (Shokri, 1995). State Management Training Management improvement is defined as the systematic development of the management efficiency in an organization. The final goal of the management improvement is the satisfactory behavior or organizational change. In the recent years, management improvement and development have been highly considered and the managers and experts are offered to be specifically trained to be able to communicate with the subordinates, consumers, clients and other individuals of the society. Therefore, the development of the training methods is a step towards the incremental awareness and productivity (Mazaheri Rad, 2011). Historical Background As a traditional concept, service training is the same as transferring a set of skills and techniques in a form of teacher-student manner which has been largely considered in the prior studies. The previous findings reveal that the service training has a longer history than the formal and classical ones. The range of the changes and evolutions has created a field 130

3 for the service training as a new introduced concept with valuable results especially in terms of techniques. As a consequence, it can be concluded that the training inefficiencies and the necessity of the restructure have been established by the industrial revolution and developed since then. In addition, the scientific and technological evolution originating from the beginning of the 20 th century have highly affected the whole dimensions of the social life. The industrial revolution caused deep changes in terms of economics, technological and scientific dimensions that finally led the previous technological innovations to be disclosed in the museums (Javdan, 2012). Service Training in Iran Iran is a country in which the human resource training had not been studied until the middle of 1931; however, the options before and after the management training has been existing in terms of case studies and sporadic ones. In 1939, a training center was founded in the ministry of Post, Telegraph and Telephone of Iran. This process was followed by establishing training centers in the national oil company, Agricultural Bank and other institutes. Since 1948, service training was established in terms of the governmental affairs and different ministries tried to establish different functions based on their own requirements (Emami, 2012). Just as the other countries, service training existed for the previous years. In terms of the modern and new methods, however, service training of the human resource has not been considered since the middle of 1930s. The existing data confirm the conduction of the sporadic studies before and after this decade. Based on the present information, the technical high school of railroads was established in 1935 and the ministry of Post, Telegraph and Telephone was established in This process was then followed by the national oil company, Agricultural bank and other institutes and department of finance in Iran. Since 1948, the state implemented service trainings in a range of the governmental functions and by different ministries based on their requirements. Establishing the Supreme Council Office, the service training and reinforcement of the human resource improved. In 1966, the new employment law was enacted and the service training methods became more integrated. According to the third note of this law, the administrative organization was forced to establish an institute for training the managers and techniques of the employees (Javdan, 2012). Training Periods of Management Improvement The training periods of the management improvement refer to the trainings by which the spiritual and professional skills of the managers aimed to be enhanced in terms of the human and technological improvements in the framework of managerial training planning and system. During these trainings based on the management training period, it seems necessary to appoint, enhance and continue the professional management. The center of the state management training is responsible for assessments and design of these periods and should be verified by the department of management development. The managerial training is classified into two following sections: a) spiritual sublimation of the managers, b) Professional enhancement of the managers. 131

4 Aim and Mission The management training seeks to achieve the following objectives: a) Enhancing the technological, human and perceptual skills of the managers and proportional matching of their information and abilities with the knowledge and technology improvements in terms of planning, organizing, directing and monitoring processes. b) Preparing manages for admitting new responsibilities and preparing employees for the admission of the new future responsibilities (Shokri, 2005). Performance evaluation of the state managers There are various definitions provided for the performance. All definitions agree upon the way the responsibilities are accomplished. In some definitions, however, the human resource performance has been defined the same as the productivity and it must be noted that the performance is a concept beyond the output and is summarized as a set of the behaviors associated with the individuals tasks shown by the people (Zarei Matin, 2000). Evaluating the performance and presenting outputs develop the performance which finally leads to the enhancement of organizational performance (Hamidi, 2012). Managerial Responsibilities and Tasks In terms of the specific situations of the government and the efficiency and effectiveness evaluated by the managerial and economic measures, state managers have been always confronting with the legal, political and ethical requirements. The responsibilities of the state managers are associated with the political and administrative affairs. In doing so, the managers should become aware of the special capabilities in terms of the financial, budgetary, ethical and political values along with the employment issues. Consequently, the managers should be able to employ different methods of analyses in describing the legal and logical bases of the decisions and functions (Alvani, 2000). Managerial Skills Katz (1974) considers the required skills for playing the roles which encompass the perceptual, human and technical skills. He also believes that the perceptual skills are mostly employed in terms of the top level; the technical skills are mostly employed in operational level and finally the human resources are equally applicable in each one of the three levels. The question that arises here is about whether the referred skills of this model are sufficient for accomplishing the tasks of the managers at any of the three levels? It must be mentioned that the Katz model has been completed by the other opinions. Kontez and Edvandel (1998) consider the required skills of the managers as follows: Technical skill: Technical skills include the knowledge and perspicacity in conducting the related operations, methods and directions. 132

5 Human skill: Human skills involve the abilities to work with the individuals. This skill includes the endeavor to cooperate and become proficient in creating an environment for freely offering of opinions. Perceptual skill: Perceptual skills involve the ability in recognizing the dominant and important positions and perceiving the connections between them. Design skill: Design skills are the abilities of problem solution. Morris believes that once the managers get closer to the operational and applicable activities, then the functions are more needed to be directed and we move towards the middle and top levels of the management and finally try more to plan and organize the affairs. More technical skills (knowledge and technique in relation to the methods and processes) are required for supervision. This skill (the ability to solve the problems) has been introduced in addition to the above skills. The top managers of the organization should be able to develop specific solutions (Shokri, 2005). Dimensions of Management Performance Organizational Performance There are various discussions in terms of the organizational indexes because the organization should examine the measures and indexes required to achieve the aims and missions. In most cases, general indexes are defined for the organization and some other factors should be considered for measuring these indexes. For example, there are some indexes such as just-in-time delivery, quality of the production, organization costs, employee participation, satisfactory services and achievement of goals (Esamili, 2005). Individual Performance The individual performance of the state managers composes a significant dimension of their performance and it also includes the individual aspects of the managerial missions. Based on the new forms of performance evaluation, the individual aspects of the managerial performance might include: * Participating in scientific and training periods and gatherings. * Receiving the training certifications of type one * Establishing self training operations * Conducting other operations in this field based on the opinions of the superiors * Adhering to the ethical values and official discipline of the working environment * Behavior with subordinates * Behavior with the clients * Encouragement (certified as a superior employee, receiving acknowledgements ) 133

6 * Special ratings (receiving the state certificates and verifications and prizes from the scientific centers, compilation or translation of books ) * Improving the procedures in any organizational unit * Developing a proper mechanism for enhancing the quality and accelerating the clients services * saving the costs of the controlled units * Effective participation and cooperation in implementing the administrative plans * Continuous assessment of the improvements * Employing new information technology methods in conducting the organizational tasks * Establishing operations in the nongovernmental sections * Being able to apply new ideas to increase the productivity of the unit * Risk taking and applicability of the projects and new ideas provided by the employees * Offering suggestions and constructive consultants to solve the issues and problems of the organization and the country (Shokri, 2005). Methodology This is an applied study using correlation-descriptive methods to gather data. The following methods are used to achieve the best result: 1. Library studies are used to define the bases, definitions and theoretical concepts among which the most important ones include internet sites, databases and libraries. 2. The questionnaires are applied to gather data and measure the variables of the study in the government organizations of Yazd. The final questionnaires have been distributed among the managers. Based on the significance of the data and the characteristics of the population and according to the benefits of the questionnaire, a research made closed questionnaire has been designed by Likert scale. To determine the validity, ten questionnaires have been distributed among the academic experts to offer their corrective opinions. Considering the opinions of the advisors and supervisors, the final questionnaire was completed and developed. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated to be based on the primary questionnaire distributed among 20 individuals. Hypothesis Development The main hypothesis: There is a significant relationship between management training and individual performance of the state managers of Yazd. 134

7 The subsidiary hypotheses include: a) There is a significant relationship between management training, creativity and innovation of the state managers of Yazd. b) There is a significant relationship between management training, participation and delegation of the authorities of the state managers of Yazd. Population and Sample The population of the study composed of 400 middle managers of government offices and the sample was determined by using random sampling. The following formula is used to determine the sample: 2 2 فرمول zs زير استفاده مي کنيم : تعيين zs حجم 1 نمو از n 1 راي ry N ry N N However, the variance of the questionnaire is calculated by the polynomial distribution (five-point Likert scale) and the following formula is achieved. In the most pessimistic case, 0.5 might be replaced by p. In this study, Z is normally distributed which is 1.96 at the 95 percent level of significance; N is the population equal to 400 and is the error term equal to Based on the calculations, 130 questionnaires were distributed among the managers and finally 105 of them were returned back. Data Analysis Variables Definition Education degree: Examining the questionnaires and data analysis, it was found that the five managers had a junior college diploma (4.8 percent), 56 managers (53.3 percent) had a bachelor degree, 43 managers (41 percent) had master degree and 1 (1 percent) had PhD degree. It must be mentioned that none of the managers had a diploma degree. Age: The results showed that 3 managers (2.9 percent) were years old, 39 managers (37.1 percent) were years old, 49 managers (46.7 percent) were years old and 14 managers (13.3 percent) were older than 50 years old. Gender: The findings revealed that 79 managers (75.2 percent) were male and 26 managers (24.8 percent) are female. Working Background: Data analysis represents that the working background for 1 manager (1 percent) was less than five years, for 14 managers (13.3 percent) was 5-10 years, for 22 managers (21 percent) was years, for 23 managers (21.9 percent) was years, for 27 managers (25.7 percent) was 21 to 25 years and for 18 managers (17.1 percent) was more than 25 years. 135

8 Employment status: It was found that 23 managers were contractually employed (21.9 percent) and 82 managers were officially employed (78.1 percent). Training Hours The following table presents the statistics of the spent hours for the management improvement periods and for the public period. Table 1: Statistical characteristics of the training hours Training Period Mean Std. Deviation Minimum Maximum Management Improvement 317 / / Public 561 / / Hypotheses testing The first hypothesis argues that the training periods of management improvement and perceptual skills of the state managers of Yazd are significantly associated. The statistic (0.785) is higher than α=0.05 and it confirms H0. Consequently, it is found that there is no significant direct relationship between training periods of the management improvement and perceptual skills. The second hypothesis considers the significant relationship between training periods of management improvement and abilities of the leadership of Yazd state managers. The statistic (0.375) is higher than α=0.05 and it shows that H0 might not be rejected. In other words, it is concluded that there is no significant direct association between training periods of management improvement and leadership ability. Table 2 Correlation between training period of management improvement and other variables Gender Male Female Total Individual Performance Perceptual skill Leadership Findings Classifying the collected data is one of the data analysis processes employing the descriptive statistics. 136

9 Since the rejection of the main hypothesis, it can be concluded that the training periods of the management improvement does not lead to the enhancement of the individual performance of the managers. Suggestions Based on the responses and the findings, the following suggestions are offered to the responsible units of the organizations related to the managerial trainings (research and training center of governor): The findings represented that the management training periods have no impact on the perceptual skills and the managers are offered to consider some concepts including the aims, strategies, shortterm and long-term goals, prioritization of the operations and employment of the proper individuals. Based on the findings about the insignificant impact of management improvement trainings on the managers leadership, the training contents are offered to include: the influence on the subordinates, increase in affecting the personnel, increase in the motivations, increase in communicative skills and group dynamics 137

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