Purpose: To give an overview of prevalent views on and practices in management development in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach: Employs a questionnaire, mainly Likert-scale, to interview human resource managers and line managers in 86 companies in New Zealand. The research model and instrumentation is based on existing research on management development in Europe. Findings: Many of the tensions and inconsistencies exhibited between assumptions and practices and a variance of views indicate that at national level management development is rather incoherent and further research would be justified. For example, it is widely assumed that experience makes a good manager, but mentoring is rated lower than external courses as a source of development. There are often substantial disparity of views between HR managers and line managers. Practical implications: Firms wishing to develop coherent management development processes could be guided by the disparities revealed in this research. Originality/value: This research is the first step towards international comparative data on management development for New Zealand, and the model allows for direct comparison with existing European data. (Contains 12 tables.)