Resumen de The effect of outing Team Building training on soft skills among MBA students: Article 100423

Henndy Ginting, Aulia Mahiranissa, Rudy Bekti, Hary Febriansyah

• This research aims to evaluate the effect of Outing Team-Building Training (OTBT) on developing soft skills (teamwork, communication, leadership, and ethics) among MBA students (N = 104) in the School of Business and Management (SBM) at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). The OTBT comprises seven training activities. After three months, the OTBT was followed up by group counseling led by mentors involved in the training. We evaluated the effect of OTBT by measuring the first three levels of Kirkpatrick's model (reaction, knowledge, and behavior). The results indicate that the three aspects of reaction level (i.e., engagement, involvement, and contribution) in the training program were mostly good. More than half of the participants (65%) understood the training material, which reflected knowledge level of training evaluation. The soft skills behaviors that significantly changed through the training were communication and leadership (p < .05). The qualitative data, which was gathered through discussions, indicated that the participants became more aware of and responsible for assimilating MBA-ITB values and ethics. Overall, the OTBT is a useful program for developing soft skills among MBA students. To further enhance the impact of OTBT, outing activities should be aligned with or preferably tailored to the needs of the participants.