A Culturally Sensitive, Mixed-Methods Approach to Analysing a Leadership Development Program.

This paper showcases a culturally sensitive mixed method research approach used to evaluate aspects of an international executive education program. The multi-million dollar program was delivered in Australia over a ten-year period to middle and senior managers from the Chinese up-stream oil and gas sector. The executive education program was a non-award but MBA level program that explored aspects of leading and managing within the Chinese oil and gas sector. Fundamentally, the study consisted of a quantitative survey followed by a focus group to investigate four aspects of the interest to the researchers: the participants perceptions of the effectiveness of the program; aspects of social capital support; industry-based human capital; and, the participants opinions about Chinese energy policy. The program was delivered in Australia over a ten-year period and during this time the Program Managers had provided formative and summative reports on each of the six- or three-month courses. This information along with anecdotal information from the Program Director provided an excellent starting point for the survey. Participants were asked to comment on four key areas of interest to the researchers including: their opinion of the effectiveness of the program; aspects of social capital support; industry-based human capital; and, their opinions about Chinese energy policy. An exploratory sequential mixed methods research design (Creswell and Plano Clark 2007) was employed. This paper focuses not on the responses of the participants but rather on the culturally sensitive, mixed-method approach that was adopted to the gather the data. In summary, we conducted an on-line survey and facilitated a focus group. However, we were conscious of the need to adapt our data gathering methods to ensure maximum responses that were insightful and robust. This approach was assisted by the diversity of our research team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]