Abstract

The establishment of the Australian Administrative Staff College is a new departure in executive training in Australia. Before 1957, when the College began its work, the only organized executive training available outside the companies themselves was given in small doses by institutes of management and by some of the larger management consultants, or through a six-week course, on the Harvard pattern, conducted in the summer vacation by the University of Melbourne. The way in which the College was founded was unusual. In the years after World War II, partly because of interest displayed by the Rotary Club of Sydney, a group of senior businessmen discussed what could be done about the executive needs of their companies. There was clearly a period of great expansion ahead. The war had left many gaps and disruptions. The executives of the pre-war years were ageing. Population was increasing rapidly, which meant that a relatively small, generation would have to provide, over the following thirty years or so, the executive talent for a relatively large generation. Changes in the national situation and assumptions were gathering speed. Executive strength must be generated, and it must be generated quickly.