Abstract

Many small businesses suffer from inadequate management skills which can lead to poor business performance and unsustainable businesses. Research to date has focused on traditional skills such as communication, time management and people skills, yet critically many business managers have no systems thinking skills. This paper presents a framework targeted at delivering systems thinking skills to managers of small businesses utilizing some key characteristic of small business managers. The design is also based on a systems analysis and guided by both adult learning theory and teaching theory. The quality of a training framework depends on the quality of the content design and the right training delivery methods. The systems thinking skills training framework structured systems thinking knowledge into three modules in order to meet the needs of different levels of managers. The framework advocates blended training delivery methods and it also presents possible pitfalls based on training experiences. Additionally, the framework incorporates a continuous improvement process for ongoing systemic improvement.

Details

Title
A Designed Framework for Delivering Systems Thinking Skills to Small Business Managers
Author
Sun, Daowei; Hyland, Paul; Cui, Haiyang
Pages
297-312
Publication year
2014
Publication date
2014
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
20798954
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
1694532267
Copyright
Copyright MDPI AG 2014