Creating a significant and sustainable executive education experience

This article reports on the development and assessment of a customized executive education experience, designed for the managers of a large financial services organization. It was designed to incorporate many of the desirable outcomes of “action learning” such as organizational impact and sustainability, while being more parsimonious in the involvement of senior executives and, in a single‐period design, in the time intensity of participant involvement. A total of 542 managers who participated in the program, over a four year period, were surveyed concerning the effectiveness of the program. Hypotheses are developed and the results examined to determine whether participants believed that the value of their learning diminished over time, the effects of demographic characteristics, and the extent to which the sharing of the learning and support of organizational colleagues affected participants’ perception of the program’s effectiveness. Results reveal less degradation over time than anticipated, and more powerful influence by subordinates, in sustaining learning.