Title Page

ABSTRACT

Contents

Chapter one. Introduction 11

1.1. Background of the Study 11

1.2. Problem Statement 13

1.3. Research Question 16

1.4. Objectives of the Study 17

1.4.1. Main Objective 17

1.4.2. Specific Objectives 17

1.5. Significance of the study 17

1.6. Chapter organization 18

Chapter Two. Literature Review 20

2.1. Theoretical literature 20

2.1.1. Human Capital Theory 20

2.1.2. Staff Training 21

2.1.3. Training Methods 24

2.1.4. Importance and benefits of training employees 25

2.1.5. Challenges to training 27

2.1.6. Service delivery 29

2.1.7. Strategies and factors affecting effective service delivery 30

2.2. Empirical Review 33

2.2.1. Experiences of International Researchers 34

2.2.2. Experience of national researchers 39

2.2.3. Summary 41

Chapter Three. Research Methodology 42

3.1. Research Design 42

3.2. Population, Sample and Sample selection 42

3.3. Data collection 43

3.4. Data analysis 44

3.5. Ethical Consideration 44

3.6. Limitation of the Study 44

Chapter Four. Analysis 45

4.1. The impact of staff training programmes on the effective service delivery within government organizations. 45

4.2. Nature of staff training programmes conducted for government officers in Sri Lanka. 48

4.3. Factors affected to increase or decrease the standards of staff training programmes. 49

4.4. Opinion of the public sector employees regarding the staff training programmes. 55

Chapter Five. Conclusion and Recommendation 62

5.1. Summary 62

5.2. Recommendations 63

References 65

Table 2.1. Strategies and factors influencing training effectiveness. 32

Figure 2.1. The Process of Planned Training 27

Figure 2.2. Factors of an effective training program 33

Figure 3.1. Public service employee categorization in Sri Lanka 43

Figure 4.1. Summary of findings 61