Organizational Attitudes as Precursors to Training Performance

• Published date: 01 December 2015
• Author: Huh‐Jung Hahn,Sungjun Kim,Jinkyu Lee
• Date: 01 December 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21218

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 26, no. 4, Winter 2015 © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21218 409

Organizational Attitudes

as Precursors to Training

Performance

Sungjun Kim, Huh-Jung Hahn, Jinkyu Lee

In most prior research on training and development, employees’

attitudes toward their organization have been viewed as consequences of

training interventions rather than as antecedents. This study asserts that

affective organizational commitment and organizational identifi cation

are performance predictors of training designed to directly address the

collective interests of the organization. Additionally, we expected that

organizational identifi cation has a stronger positive effect on training

performance than does organizational commitment. To test these

hypotheses, the independent variables were measured in 149 trainees prior

to the beginning of the training program. Observers’ ratings of behavioral

performance were evaluated as the training outcome using an assessment

center method. The analysis showed that organizational identifi cation

signifi cantly predicts training performance, whereas organizational

commitment does not.

Key Words: training performance, organizational commitment,

organizational identifi cation

Recent competitive business environments and social norms confront employ-

ees with collectively coping with various organizational issues. To address

these growing expectations and pressures, organizations provide their manag-

ers and employees with training interventions. These interventions promote

organizational wellness and sustainability, which require collective exertion

from employees. Such training topics include core organizational values (e.g.,

Williams, 2002), business ethics (e.g., Craft, 2010), diversity and antidiscrim-

ination (e.g., Holladay, Knight, Paige, & Quiñones, 2003; Wiethoff, 2004),

information security awareness (e.g., Shaw, Chen, Harris, & Huang, 2009),

410 Kim, Hahn, Lee

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq

environmental management (e.g., Perron, Côté, & Duffy, 2006), and corpo-

rate social responsibility (CSR; Knudsen, Geisler, & Ege, 2013). Because of the

importance of training and its potential effects on organizations (Berardinelli,

Burrow, & Jones, 1995), both researchers and practitioners need a better

understanding of the characteristics of trainees that contribute to enhancing

the effectiveness of training.

Although studies of trainee motivation regarding job-related training

and skills development are abundant (Burke & Hutchins, 2007; Colquitt,

LePine, & Noe, 2000; Egan, Yang, & Bartlett, 2004), antecedent conditions

that impact the effectiveness of the training described above have not been

thoroughly enough examined. It has long been assumed that organizational

training programs are primarily designed to improve job profi ciency and posi-

tive work-related attitudes (Noe & Schmitt, 1986; Tziner, Fisher, Senior, &

Weisberg, 2007; Xiao, 1996; Yamnill & McLean, 2001). Therefore, previous

studies that attempted to explore the employee characteristics that infl uence

training outcomes have primarily focused on factors related to the level of abil-

ity necessary to acquire the job-related knowledge and skills provided in train-

ing (Ford, Smith, Weissbein, Gully, & Salas, 1998; Noe, 1986; Yamkovenko

& Holton, 2010).

This study extends the previous literature in two ways. We fi rst exam-

ine employees’ attitudinal constructs as antecedents by focusing on training

that primarily requires the collective exertion of organizational members.

Although researchers have highlighted the possible effects of employee atti-

tudes on training effectiveness (Alvarez, Salas, & Garofano, 2004; Noe, 1986;

Noe & Schmitt, 1986), relatively little research has been conducted on this

issue (Ford etal., 1998). Second, this study specifi cally examines employ-

ees’ attitudes toward the organization as possible predictors of training per-

formance, which is a criterion for assessing the effectiveness of any training

(Alvarez etal., 2004). A prolifi c body of literature has consistently demon-

strated that an employee with a positive attitude toward the organization has

a sense of obligation to contribute to the collective interest and cares about

organizational welfare (Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993). However, the extant

literature has traditionally treated organizational attitudes as consequences

rather than predictors of training effectiveness (e.g., Al-Emadi & Marquardt,

2007; Bartlett, 2001; Ehrhardt, Miller, Freeman, & Hom, 2011). These atti-

tudes may be strong motivational antecedents in training sessions in which

the educational content is directly connected to organizational wellness and

sustainability (Riketta, 2002, 2005).

This study employs affective organizational commitment (OC) and orga-

nizational identifi cation (OI) as possible predictors of training performance.

Both concepts are commonly identifi ed as salient employee attitudinal con-

structs within organizations (Gautam, Van Dick, & Wagner, 2004; Riketta,

2002, 2005). We expect that OI will more strongly predict performance than

OC, because the psychological motivation for OI that contributes to training