Impact on financial productivity: A study of training effects on consulting services

Abstract

Abstract An evaluation study was conducted to assess the return on investment of training. Investment consisted of the development and delivery costs associated with increasing the competence of consultants in a tax specialty area. A three‐phase study was implemented to (1) determine pretraining trends, (2) evaluate the training event, and (3) follow the activities of students after training. While data were obtained from multiple sources throughout the study, key information in determining financial impact was obtained from accounting data bases. Return was defined as the amount of time required for the training to result in a payback equal to the original investment. After the revenues that could be attributed to training were determined, results indicated that the training had a substantive positive financial impact. The findings are discussed from the standpoint of the appropriate theoretical paradigm for this type of evaluation. Specifically, the authors point to the need to avoid issues of cause and effect and to utilize an evidentiary paradigm in drawing conclusions.