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The relevance of organizational subculture for motivation to transfer learning
Author(s) -
Egan Toby Marshall
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
human resource development quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.756
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1532-1096
pISSN - 1044-8004
DOI - 10.1002/hrdq.1243
Subject(s) - subculture (biology) , psychology , organizational culture , leadership style , organizational learning , transfer of training , transfer of learning , population , social psychology , public relations , sociology , knowledge management , developmental psychology , political science , botany , demography , computer science , cognitive psychology , biology
Although human resource development practitioners and researchers emphasize organizational culture as a major contributor to employee learning and development, results from this study suggest organizational subculture has greater influence on employee‐related learning motivation. The relationships among organizational culture, organizational subculture, leadership style, and motivation to transfer learning are examined in this study of 354 randomly selected health care providers from a population of 1,255 employees of three of the largest health care organizations in the United States. Study findings indicate that organizational subculture was highly associated with employee motivation to transfer learning—far higher than organizational culture overall. Supportive and innovative subcultures have clear positive relationships, while bureaucratic subcultures negatively influenced motivation to transfer learning. Findings also support the differences between leadership style types and particular subculture types in relation to motivation to transfer learning. In terms of leadership style, a consideration style had a stronger relationship to motivation to transfer learning than did structuring style. Implications for HRD research and practice are explored.