influence of training environment on trainee motivation and perceived quality

International Journal of Training and Development 3:1ISSN 1360-3736

The influence of the trainingenvironment on trainee

motivation and perceivedtraining quality

Christopher Orpen

To examine the relationships between the training environ-ment and employee responses to training provided by theirorganisations, 105 managers employed by different 12 Aus-tralian organisations completed measures of the personalaspects of organisational commitment, job involvement, selfesteem, and personal control, as well as of the organisationalaspects of social support from work, social support outsidework, training incentives, training resources, and trainingneeds. The trainees also indicated how motivated they werefor the training, and how they judged the quality of the train-ing provided by their organisations—the two outcomes of thestudy. Eight of the 10 relationships between the organis-ational aspects and outcomes were significant, but only threeof the eight relationships between the personal aspects andoutcomes. It is argued that the results suggest that it is howorganisations go about managing training, especially howmany resources they provide, what training incentives theymake available, and how much the training is needed thatcounts, rather than the personal attributes of the trainees.

Recent estimates have put the amount of money spent on training by organisationsin the United States alone to be as high as $200 billion (McKenna, 1995). Althoughsuch surveys have not been carried out in Britain, assuming that organisations inBritain spend comparable amounts as their United States counterparts, the figure formoney spent on training in Britain would be as much as $30 billion. Moreover, thereare good grounds for expecting this figure to increase, as organisations increasinglyappreciate the value of training their workforce. There are a number of reasons forthis. Technological changes are making greater demands of employees, at all levels.

❒ Christopher Orpen is Reader in Management at The Business School, Bournemouth University.

Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA.

34 International Journal of Training and Development

Rapid and unpredictable changes in their operating environments are requiringorganisations to have adaptable and competent employees, more so than previously.The increased emphasis on high quality goods and services, in the face of greatercompetition in the marketplace, is making it more necessary than ever for organis-ations to equip their employees with the relevant skills and develop their appropriatecompetencies. An ageing workforce—together with fewer young recruits—meansorganisations are having to spend more money and time on ‘preventing’ theiremployees from becoming obsolescent, rather than relying on schools and colleges.Finally, employees themselves are increasingly demanding that their employers pro-vide them with all the training they need to perform not only their current jobs, butalso any related ones they may hold subsequently within the organisation and out-side, sometimes even as part of the informal contract of employment (eg. Goldstein,1993; Johnston and Packer, 1997: London, 1989).

In the light of research which sugggests that (1) training is likely to become moreimportant, for the reasons just indicated, and (2) the quality and quantity of trainingprovided within an organisation is positively associated with measures of overalleffectiveness (cf., Goldstein, 1993; Campbell, 1991), it is imperative that managersunderstand the factors that help to make training successful as well as those thathave the opposite effect. Recent reviews of the research literature are agreed thattraining is unlikely to be effective unless (1) the trainees have a high level of pretrain-ing motivation, and (2) the trainees perceive the training to be of high quality,specifically in the case of job training, they believe that what they learn on the parti-cular training programme can be subsequently applied to enable them to performtheir jobs better, and hopefully also feel more positive toward their work (cf., Wexleyand Latham, 1991; Cascio, 1992).

While trainee motivation and perceived training quality appear to be essentialingredients for training effectiveness, relatively little research has examined the sortof training environment that encourages trainees to be motivated and hold such per-ceptions. The present study, which aims to remove this deficiency, examines therelationships between these two essential ingredients of training effectiveness andseveral organisational and personal aspects of the training environment. The eightaspects chosen for examination are those which reviews of the training literature,notably those of Baldwin and Ford (1996) and London (1989), suggest should bemost predictive of individual differences in trainee motivation and perceptions oftraining quality.

The four personal aspects of the training environment, considered from an organis-ational perspective, that were examined were (1) employee organisational commit-ment, (2) job involvement, (3) self esteem and (4) personal control. It is argued thateach of these personal aspects need to be considered because of their possible interac-tion with the training experience, rather than them merely being determinants ofhow training is perceived. Taking each in turn: Employee commitment to the organis-ation refers to the extent to which employees feel emotionally attached to theiremployer, and hence are willing to work hard towards its goals (Mowday et al. 1982).Because they want to do well for the sake of their organisations, committedemployees are likely to be more motivated when it comes to training put on by theorganisation. Because they typically think highly of their organisation (Mowday etal. 1982) such employees are also more likely to regard its training to be of highquality than their uncommitted counterparts. Employees who are involved in theirjobs typically invest a lot of themselves in their actual duties and tasks, as a resultof which they are usually concerned to perform them effectively (Tannenbaum et al.1991). Because training offers a help towards doing this, it is not surprising thatemployees who are involved in their jobs should be more highly motivated in regardto training than those who are not (Hicks and Klimoski, 1987). Since their jobs aremore central to them personally, involved employees are less willing to ‘accept’ thattraining for their job is poor than are employees whose involvement in their jobs iseither weak or absent.

Self esteem as a variable refers to the general positive or negative feelings of

Influence of training environment on trainee motivation 35 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

employees about themselves, whether they hold themselves in high or low regard(Coopersmith, 1990). Employees with high self esteem typically believe they are cap-able of benefitting from training, and hence are more willing to make the effort neces-sary to bring this about than their counterparts with low self esteem (Knowles, 1994).Moreover, since high self esteem is associated with an overall optimistic outlook onlife (Coopersmith, 1990), employees with positive feelings about themselves will tendto perceive something like training to be of good rather than poor quality, at leastcompared to employees with a negative view of themselves. Personal control (Rotter,1990) refers to the extent to which employees believe that what happens to them islargely due to things under their influence (internal control) or to circumstances theyare largely powerless to affect (external control). Internal control employees are thusmore likely to feel they can influence the outcomes of training in the way they want,which feelings in turn should make them motivated to do well on the relevant course(Tziner et al. 1991). Because internal control employees typically believe they havemore influence over what happens to them on training programmes than do theirexternal control counterparts, this means they should also regard such programmesmore highly, to be of better quality, than should the latter (Mathieu et al. 1992). Itis much ‘easier’ for employees who feel they have had little or no influence, or say,over a training programme to think poorly of it than employees who feel they havecontributed to making the training programme what it is, even if only slightly(Baldwin et al. 1991).

The five organisational aspects of the training environment hypothesised to affectboth trainee motivation and perceptions of training quality, that were examined inthe present study were (1) social support—at work, (2) social support—outside work,(3) training incentives, (4) training resources, and (5) training needs. Social supportin the present study refers to the amount—and quality—of relevant support receivedfrom peers, managers, family and friends. Provided it is genuine and not overdone,the more supportive such persons are of the training efforts of employees, the morelikely it is that the particular employees will approach their training positively, whichincludes being willing to make the necessary effort and believing the quality of thetraining to be high (Mathieu et al. 1992). Because of evidence that social support atwork, and that provided by family and nonwork friends, are often not highly related(Orpen, 1990), in the present study support from these two sources were separ-ately assessed.

According to expectancy theory, employees should be more willing to work hardtoward training objectives, if they feel they will be rewarded, will receive appropriateincentives, for doing well on the programme—which includes putting into effectwhat they have learnt back on the job (Lawler et al. 1990). Being appropriatelyrewarded—through the provision of intrinsic and extrinsic incentives—for doingwell, should also cause employees to think highly of the training programme ‘respon-sible’ for the rewards being available to them in the first place. If employees regardtraining highly, it is ‘easier’ for them to justify receiving any rewards they do; it alsoprovides them with an indirect way of ‘thanking’ the organisation for giving themthese rewards, in the first place (Noe, 1986; Deci, 1975).

Following Goldstein (1993), the construct of training resources covers the provisionby the organisation of the basic necessities for effective training provision, chieflythose connected with time—for the training to take place during workhours,money—to pay for trainers, training equipment and facilities, and ‘cover’ for trainees,and opportunity—for the trainees to apply what they have learnt back on their jobs.Given the dependence of training on such resources (London, 1989), it is argued,other things being equal, the more time, money and opportunities are provided, thebetter the training, and hence the more likely trainees will be motivated for it andwill perceive it to be of high quality. Finally, training needs refers here to threerelated aspects; the extent to which trainees feel they are not performing as well asthey can on their jobs; how much they feel that what is letting them down can becorrected by training; and, the extent to which they feel the proposed training is ableto provide them with what they feel they need to overcome or make up for what is

36 International Journal of Training and Development Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

responsible for them not performing as well as they would like (Johnston and Packer,1997; Wexley and Latham, 1991). According to Campbell 1991), the more need trai-nees feel there is for a particular programme, the greater their motivation, to do whatis necessary for them to really benefit from it. In addition, employees are more likelyto regard a training programme highly, if they feel it can help them to overcomeweaknesses and shortcomings that are preventing them from performing as well asthey would like (Goldstein, 1993).

MethodThe subjects of the study were 105 managers employees employed by 12 differentAustralian private organisations, both small and large, in the financial, retailing, andmanufacturing sectors. The number of subjects employed by the same organisationranged from 2 to 11. Whilst the content of their jobs differed widely, all the subjectswere responsible for the work of a number of subordinates, and reported directly togeneral management. The average age of the subjects was 30.6 years. Their averagetenure with their current employer was 5.5 years. Forty-six per cent of the subjectswere female. Sixty-five per cent had university degrees. All subjects had attended atleast one training course run by their current employer, and were expecting to attendfurther courses of this kind, these being the main qualifications for their inclusion.In this respect, they were specifically asked, when answering questions about train-ing, to think in terms of the actual training they had received from their currentemployer, as well as the future training their employer would be likely to provide.The subjects completed a single questionnaire, comprising the various measures,whilst at work. They were assured of anonymity and confidentiality of theirresponses.

Organisational commitment was assessed by a 10 item version of the scaledeveloped by Allen and Meyer (1996), to measure emotional attachment ofemployees to ‘their’ organisation that results in them wanting to remain with it,rather than to move to alternative employers (alpha = 0.80). Job involvement wasassessed by the 12 item short form of the widely-used Lodahl and Kejner (1986) scale,that assesses how involved employees are with their actual jobs in the organisation,with the duties and tasks that constitute their work roles (alpha = 0.78). The selfesteem of the subjects was measured by 10 items from the Coopersmith (1991) SelfEsteem Scale, that assesses how generally positive or negative subjects feel aboutthemselves, in a variety of situations where they are likely to be judged by others insome way or another (alpha = 0.83). Finally, the personal control of the subjects wasassessed by 12 items from the well-known Internal-External scale of Rotter (1987),that assesses the degree to which subjects feel they have control over what happensto them in life, rather than it being a matter of chance or luck (alpha = 0.77).

Arguing from Baldwin and Ford (1996) and Noe (1986), social support—at work—was assessed by six items that asked subjects to indicate how much (1) psychologicalencouragement, (2) material help, and (3) technical assistance they received in respectof training at work, from respectively (1) their peers or colleagues, and (2) theirsuperiors, including their immediate boss, each on a scale from 1 (very little) to 5(very much). Subjects responses to the six scales were summed, to yield a total scoreindicating perceived social support, at work (alpha = 0.79). Social support—outsidework, was assessed by the same three items about training, this time asked respect-ively about (1) friends and about (2) family. Again, subjects responses to the six itemswere summed, to give a total score indicating perceived social support, outside work(alpha = 0.77). A measure of training incentives, specifically of the extent to whichsubjects felt valued outomes were contingent on them doing well on the trainingcourse, was obtained in the following way. First, subjects were presented with thefollowing six common and generalised potential training outcomes, taken from Wex-ley and Latham (1991); receiving a pay rise, getting better job assignments, becomingmore skilled to enable one to do ones job more effectively, improving ones promotionprospects, developing personally, and enhancing one’s marketablity for jobs outside.


Second, each subject rated how much importance they attached to each of theseoutcomes (on a scale from 1—very little, to 5—very much), and to what extentobtaining each outcome is dependent, or contingent, upon successful completion ofthe sort of training courses offered by their organisation (on a scale from 1—verylittle, to 5—very much). Finally, following the suggestion of Baldwin and Ford (1996),these importance and contingent ratings were multiplied for each of the outcomes,and the resulting scores (products of the two ratings) summed across all six out-comes, to produce a total score for each subject, indicating the degree to which valuedincentives were dependent on completion of the organisation’s training courses(training incentives score).

To measure training resources, defined as the degree to which subjects felt theirorganisation provided the means for training to be potentially effective, each subjectrated how much their employer provided each of the following five trainingresources (from Wexley and Latham, 1991), each on a scale from 1 (very little) to 5(very much); time, money, equipment, facilities, and opportunity. Subjects responsesto the fifteen items (three for each resource) that comprised the scale were summed,to yield a single score for each subject indicating the extent of perceived trainingresources. Coefficient alpha for the training resources scale was .79. Finally, trainingneed was assessed by a short scale, adapted from Baldwin and Ford (1996), compris-ing the following three items, (1) how much subjects felt they could do better atwork, (2) how much this was due to weaknesses or shortcomings on their part, and(3) how much the latter could be improved or overcome through training providedby their employer. Subjects responses to each item, from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a greatdeal), were summed, to give a total score reflecting felt training need on the part ofthe subject. Coefficient alpha for the training need scale was 0.83.

The dependent variable of trainee motivation was assessed by 10 items drawnfrom the scales developed by Noe and Schmitt (1986) and Hicks and Klimoski, (1987).Samples of the items, to each of which subjects responded on scales from 1 (not atall true of me) to 5 (very true of me), are ‘I want to learn as much as I can from anytraining courses provided by my employer’ and ‘I am willing to make sacrifices tobenefit from training courses’. Coefficient alpha for the trainee motivation measurewas 0.80. Finally, the dependent variable of trainee perceptions of training quality,was assessed by 12 items drawn from Baldwin and Ford (1996) covering the aspectsof course instructors, course delivery, and course relevance. Examples of items, toeach of which subjects responded from 1 (disagree strongly) to 5 (agree strongly),are ‘the instructors on my training courses have really known what they were talkingabout’, ‘the material on my training courses was taught in the appropriate manner’and ‘I have found what I learnt on my training courses very useful back at my job’.Coefficient alpha for the measure of perceived training quality was 0.73.

Results and discussionThe mean scores (and standard deviations) of the sample on the measures of thevarious personal and organisational aspects of the training environment were calcu-lated, as well as on the outcome measures of trainee motivation and trainee percep-tions of training quality. To test the hypotheses guiding the study, separate corre-lations were computed between each of the outcome measures and the eight personaland organisational aspects of the training environment, each regarded as hypoth-esised correlates of trainee motivation and perceptions of training quality. The resultsof this analysis are presented in Tables 1 and 2.

As evident in Table 2, the majority of the hypothesised correlations between theorganisational aspects of the training environment and both outcomes were statisti-cally significant, but only a minority of these correlations were significant for thepersonal aspects of the training environment, contrary to what was hypothesised.Specifically, only one of the five measures of the personal aspects correlated signifi-cantly with both trainee motivation and perceived training quality, that of organis-ational commitment. The measure of job involvement correlated significantly with


Table 1: Means and standard deviations of measures of environmentalaspects and training outcomes

Measure Mean Standard deviation

OutcomesTrainee motivation 40.78 5.99Perceived training quality 38.40 6.85Personal aspectsOrganisational commitment 29.91 4.98Job involvement 37.03 5.99Self esteem 32.96 7.78Personal control 40.11 6.01Organisational aspectsSocial support—at work 18.01 3.00Social support—outside work 21.15 3.96Training incentives 44.48 8.93Training resources 46.00 6.56Training needs 17.22 3.45

Table 2: Relationships between environmental variables and trainee motivation andperceived training quality

Environmental variables Trainee motivation Perceived trainingquality

Personal aspectsOrganisational commitment 0.230* 0.200*Job involvement 0.199 0.115Self esteem 0.098 0.103Personal control 0.127 0.105

Organisational aspectsSocial support—at work 0.246** 0.168Social support—outside work 0.230* 0.144Training incentives 0.283** 0.211*Training resources 0.302** 0.229*Training needs 0.319** 0.243**

* p , 0.05** p , 0.01

trainee motivation, but not with perceived training quality. Neither of the correlationsbetween the measure of self esteem and the two outcomes, nor those between themeasure of personal control and the two outcomes were significant. In contrast, asmade clear in Table 2, of the five organisational aspects of the training environment,three correlated significantly in the predicted direction with both trainee motivationand perceived training quality, those of training incentives, training resources, andtraining needs. The highest correlations were those between training needs and theoutcomes, both of which were significant at the .01 level. The only nonsignificantcorrelations were those between perceived training quality and the measures of socialsupport—at work, and of social support—outside work.

If these results can be replicated, they would suggest from a managerial perspec-tive that the extent to which employees respond positively toward training courses


provided by their organisation, is related to the training environment that existswithin the organisation, but that the strength of this relationship varies widelydepending on the particular aspect of the environment under consideration. Specifi-cally, it appears that employees who are committed to the organisation are morelikely to be highly motivated to do well on training courses than those who are notcommitted to the same degree, as are those who are involved in their jobs comparedto those who are not involved to the same extent. Employees who are involved intheir jobs are also more likely to perceive the quality of the training courses providedby their organisation to be higher than their counterparts who are much less involvedin their jobs. However, employees with high self esteem and with internal controlbeliefs were not more motivated than those with relatively low self esteem and thosewith external control beliefs. Similarily, employees with high self esteem and withinternal control beliefs did not perceive the quality of the training courses to be anyhigher than the latter.

There are a number of possible reasons why subjects’ reactions to training in thepresent study should have been unaffected by their degree of self esteem and bywhether they held internal or external beliefs, contrary to what was expected. Per-haps the generalised measures of self esteem and personal control used in the presentstudy were not a sufficiently accurate measure of how the subjects actually felt aboutthemselves in the workplace, a possibility suggested by the fact that how peoplejudge themselves can vary widely across work and nonwork situations (Orpen, 1990).Alternatively, there may not have been enough variation in self esteem and personalcontrol among the present subjects, for a relationship between them and employeereactions to training courses to ‘show up’ in statistically significant correlations(Campbell, 1991).

Finally, the relevant training courses may not have been demanding enough toinduce different reactions from subjects high and low in these personal variables.Perhaps, for high self esteem subjects to react much more positively to trainingcourses, the courses need to be sufficiently demanding for them to feel they can copeor manage, but for their colleagues with low self esteem to feel that they either cannotmanage or cope, at least relatively. Since internal control employees typically believethemselves to be more able to manage or cope with training courses than externalcontrol employees (Rotter, 1987), the fact that the training courses may have beenfairly easy and straight forward can help explain the lack of a relationship betweenpersonal control and subjects’ reactions to training courses. More research is neededto test the extent to which each of these reasons can account for the present findings,should future investigations also show that individual differences in self esteem andin personal control cannot predict how employees will react to training courses.

That social support—at work, and outside work—was unrelated to perceived train-ing quality was contrary to what was expected. In the absence of further data, it isdifficult to know why this should have been the case among the present subjects.As predicted, the greater the support the present subjects received from thesesources, the greater their motivation to do well on training courses provided by theirorganisations. However, this greater motivation on the part of the subjects did not‘translate’ into more favourable perceptions of training quality. Perhaps subjects whowere highly motivated, expected more from their training courses, and as a resulttended to judge them more harshly (ie. to perceive them to be of poorer quality)than subjects who were not motivated to the same extent (Deci, 1975). Additionally,the persons at work and outside work who provided support to the subjects mayhave been critical of the training courses, if only by implication, to ‘protect’ the sub-jects from feeling bad if they failed. Their emphasis, in giving support, may havebeen on the subjects doing well for their personal sakes, irrespective of the qualityof the courses, as Goldstein (1993) suggests can often happen.

The fact that the environmental variables of training incentives, training resources,and training needs were each associated with trainee motivation and perceived train-ing quality is explicible on the reasonable assumption that the subjects were intenton maximising ‘returns’ for their varied efforts. Assuming this to be the case, the


subjects should have tried harder on training courses, the more they perceive valuedoutcomes to be contingent on them doing well on the courses, and also rate thecourses better since it is the courses that are the ‘sources’ of valued outcomes, ie. oftraining incentives (Lawler et al. 1990). By the same token, because employee subjectstypically regard training courses as potentially more effective—and hencerewarding—when all the necessary resources are provided, it follows that the sub-jects should respond more positively to courses that are properly resourced, than tothose which are given few or no resources (training resources). Finally, for the samereasons, subjects who believe particular training courses can provide them with thereturns they are seeking ought to try harder on such courses and rate them better,than subjects who do not believe the same training courses can satisfy their concerns,ie. their training needs (Lawler et al. 1990).

The findings from this study have a number of implications for making trainingcourses more effective, especially if the findings can be replicated in further researchon other kinds of samples and employing different measures. For one thing, at themost general level, they suggest that managers need to pay close attention to theenvironment within which the particular training occurs, as some aspects of theenvironment are related to training effectiveness. The results suggest that there aresome aspects of the training environment that make it more likely that the trainingprovided by the organisation will be effective, and others that make it less likely.Although these aspects ultimately are of a perceptual nature, they are strongly affec-ted by what managers actually do and say about training, as stressed by London(1989) and Hicks and Klimoski (1987).

For another thing, the current findings indicate for their training courses to beeffective, managers should provide the necessary time, money, equipment, facilities,and opportunities for the training, and take deliberate steps to ‘ensure’ that theemployees concerned believe the resources provided are enough, or at least adequate,for the particular purpose. In this respect, it seems that it may be better not to offertraining at all, if it cannot be properly resourced, at least in the eyes of the traineesthemselves (Knowles, 1994). Specifically, the results suggest that employees areunlikely to be motivated for training or to believe training is of high quality if theyfeel, rightly or wrongly, that the organisation has not made enough time available,or believe that too little money has been provided. Also, that employees are not likelyto respond positively unless they believe, whether correctly or not, that the equip-ment and facilities supplied by the organisation are ‘up to the job’ and they havebeen given enough opportunities to apply what they have learnt.

In addition, the results indicate that employees will respond better to training ifthey feel there is ‘something in it’ for them. The implication of this for managers isthat they must not only provide training outcomes that employees value, but mustmake them contingent on employees making the effort necessary for them to reallybenefit from the training. Instead of merely making training available—as if this isenough in itself—managers must provide appropriate intrinsic and extrinsic trainingincentives. Although such advice is common in training texts (eg. Baldwin and Ford,1996; Goldstein, 1993; Wexley and Latham, 1991), seldom has its validity been soclearly confirmed as in the present study. Based on these results, intrinsically thetraining should be interesting and challenging to the trainees, who must perceivethat what they learn can be applied to make them more effective at work. Extrinsi-cally, the managers must reward trainees for doing well on the course and forimplementing its lessons, by giving them the things that most employees want, likepay increases, promotions, and more desirable assignments, as well as the opport-unity to put their training into effect—a potentially potent reward in many cases.Moreover, the findings suggest that for training to be effective it must fill a definiteneed, that is recognised by the trainees themselves. Whilst this may appear obvious,it is surprising how frequently this advice is ignored by managers responsible forthe training function in organisations (Campbell, 1991; London, 1989). Of the differentvariables investigated in the present study, the best predictor of how employees feltabout training was how much employees felt that the weaknesses or shortcomings


responsible for them not doing as well as they would like at work, could be overcomeor corrected by particular training. For this reason, rather than just hoping traineeswill develop the appropriate ideas, managers should go out of their way to indicateto the trainees concerned just how the particular training can satisfy their needs, tomake it as clear as they can what the training can actually do to help the particulartrainees be more effective.

Finally, the findings regarding the relationships between the personal variablesand employee responses to training suggest, contrary to what others have maintained(eg. Noe and Schmitt, 1986; Goldstein, 1993), that training delivered by the organis-ation will be just as effective for employees who differ widely in self esteem, personalcontrol, and job involvement (as far as perceived training quality is concerned). How-ever, managers can expect employees who are committed to the organisation torespond more positively than those who are not. As far as the variables examined inthis study are concerned, the fact that most of these relationships were nonsignificantsuggests, at least among these employees and the sort of training covered in thisstudy, that there may be no need for managers to restrict their training courses tocertain kinds of employees. Also, as regards these variables, that it is unecessary forthem to deliberately design their courses to make them suitable for employees ofone kind rather than another. Perhaps for relatively straight-forward training coursesthat are geared to making employees more effective in jobs which they are alreadydoing—as was the case here—the importance of individual difference variables inaffecting how employees react to training can easily be exaggerated. Whether thepresent findings can be replicated or not, they should at least caution managersagainst automatically assuming that different employees will always respond differ-ently to the same training courses. They also point to the potential fruitfulness ofresearch designed to show exactly when various kinds of employees will react in thesame—and different—ways to the variety of training courses provided by organis-ations.

ReferencesAllen, J. and R. Meyer (1996), ‘The antecedents and measurement of organisational commitment’,

Journal of Organisational Behaviour, 12, 123–131.Baldwin, T. and J. K. Ford (1996), ‘Transfer of training’, Personnel Psychology, 41, 63–105.Baldwin, T., R. Majuka, and B. T. Loher (1991), ‘Employee participation. The effects of training

choice on trainee motivation and learning’, Personnel Psychology, 44, 51–65.Campbell, J. P. (1991), ‘Personnel training and development’, Annual Review of Psychology, 22,

565–602.Cascio, W. (1992), Applied psychology in personnel management, (Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-

Hall).Coopersmith, J. (1991), The antecedents of self-esteem (New York: McGraw-Hill).Deci, E. L. (1975), Intrinsic motivation (New York: Plenum Press).Goldstein, I. L. (1993), Training in organisations, (Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks-Cole).Hicks, W. D. and Klimoski, R. (1987), ‘Entry into training programmes and its effect on training

outcomes’, Academy of Management Journal, 30, 542–555.Johnston, W. and A. Packer (1997), Work and workers for the twenty-first century, (Indianapolis,

IN: Hudson Institute).Knowles, M. S. (1994), ‘Adult learning: Theory and practice’, in L. Nadler (ed), The handbook of

human resource development (New York: Wiley).Lawler, E. E., L. W. Porter and J. Hackman (1990), Behaviour in organisations, (New York:

McGraw-Hill).Lodahl, D. and T. Kejner (1986), ‘The definition and measurement of job involvement’. Journal

of Applied Psychology, 71, 127–135.London, M. (1989), Managing the training enterprise (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass).Matthieu, J., S. Tannenbaum, and E. Salas (1992), ‘Influences of individuals and situational

characteristics on measures of training effectiveness’, Academy of Management Journal, 35,828–847.

McKenna, J. F. (1995), ‘Take the training’, Industry Week, 239, 22–29.Mowday, R., L. W. Porter and R. Steers (1982), Employee-organisation linkages: The psychology of

employee commitment, absenteeism, and turnover (San Diego, CA: Academic Press).


Noe, R. A. (1986), ‘Trainee attributes and attitudes: Neglected influences on training effective-ness’. Academy of Management Review, 11, 736–749.

Noe, R. A. and N. Schmitt (1986), ‘The influence of trainee attitudes on training effectivess’,Personnel Psychology, 39, 497–523.

Orpen, C. (1990), Behaviour in work organisations (Johannesburg, South Africa: Jonathan Ball).Rotter, I. (1987), Personal control and human behaviour (New York: McGraw-Hill).Tannenbaum, S., J. E. Mathieu, E. Salas, E and J. A. Bowers (1991), Meeting trainee expectations:

The influence of training fulfilment on commitment, self efficacy, and motivation’, Journal ofApplied Psychology, 76, 759–769.

Tziner, A., R. Haccoun and A. Kadish (1997), ‘Personal and situational characteristics influencingthe effectiveness of transfer of training improvement strategies’, Journal of Occupational Psy-chology, 64, 167–177.

Wexley, K. N. and G. Latham (1991), Developing and training human resources in organisations (NewYork: McGraw-Hill).


influence of training environment on trainee motivation and perceived quality

Documents