| For more than twenty-four years the Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) has been providing employment and training services to people all over America. Using its motto, "We Help Ourselves," OIC has recruited, assessed, trained, counseled, motivated and placed into employment over a million people since it opened its doors in 1964.;In addition to the trainees, who were helped by OIC many employees of local OIC affiliates have benefited greatly from the management training and staff development program provided by OIC.;In 1969, OIC began its management training effort to prepare future leaders for its organization and, as it turned out, leaders for other organizations and businesses.;This study investigated the influence the OIC Management Training Program had on the current success of former participants of the program as perceived by those participants.;The study was conducted on a nationwide basis with forty-six respondents from various states and Washington, D.C., to achieve the goal of this study, qualitative research methodology was utilized. Semi-structured interviews were taped and notes were taken during the interviews.;The review of the literature was conducted in two major sections. Section one highlighted four areas. First, it illuminated some of the significant work that had been done on learning in general and adult learning in particular. Secondly it focused on the two fundamental approaches in structuring education programs--the "acquisition of knowledge" school and the "problem-centered" school. It also focused on the approach OIC used in structuring its management training program. Third, it examined efforts to classify management training programs as either "external" or "internal" programs. Forth, the evaluation of management programs was reviewed.;Section two of the review of the literature was devoted solely to OIC, its origin, how it developed and spread throughout the nation and into foreign countries. Also, this section focused on the OIC Management Training Program, tracing its growth and its development of a management training philosophy.;As was anticipated at the beginning of the study a substantial number of the participants of the OIC Management Training Program who have achieved success came to work for OIC with little or no prior management experience. The findings in the study did reflect twenty-three, or half of the respondents had no prior management experience.;Most of the other twenty-three respondents had three years or less of prior management experience. However, the study reveals no significant differences between the two groups with regard to the study's research questions, under the areas of: (a) courses taken; (b) courses that were helpful; (c) courses that impacted participants' careers without the OIC Management Training Program intervention; (d) the influence the OIC Management Training Program had on participants' current success. |
