Measuring the knowledge transfer for an educational program on Project Management

This paper focuses on the analysis of the impacts of project management corporate training programs. This work aims at providing evidence regarding the impact of project management training programs by analyzing three layers at which training can be evaluated: i) perceived quality, ii) knowledge and iii) applied competences. Data has been collected within a corporate training program on project management within an international industrial group involving more than 500 project managers. Empirical analyses are based on customer satisfaction questionnaires fulfilled by the participants to the training activities, knowledge tests that participants had to undertake before and after the training program, and a survey conducted one year after the training activities. The analysis of the relationships among the different variables provides evidence of the conditions that influence the transfer of project management training into specific behaviors. These results also highlight guidelines that companies should consider in order to design effective training programs.