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The impact of practical relevance on training transfer: evidence from a service quality training program for German bank clerks
Author(s) -
Liebermann Susanne,
Hoffmann Stefan
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
international journal of training and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.558
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1468-2419
pISSN - 1360-3736
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2419.2008.00296.x
Subject(s) - relevance (law) , transfer of training , german , structural equation modeling , quality (philosophy) , variety (cybernetics) , psychology , service (business) , training (meteorology) , service quality , applied psychology , medical education , knowledge management , marketing , computer science , business , medicine , political science , cognitive psychology , history , physics , philosophy , archaeology , epistemology , machine learning , artificial intelligence , meteorology , law
The management literature provides a variety of recommendations as to how workers’ customer orientation might be improved, including through training. Crucial factors in the process of transferring the contents of service quality training programs to practice, however, have not yet been sufficiently analysed. This study proposes and tests a model of transfer motivation and training transfer via structural equation modelling, validating Baldwin and Ford's framework and Kirkpatrick's levels of evaluation. Following the recommendation of Alliger et al ., the present study analyses the relationship between Kirkpatrick's levels of evaluation, paying attention to the specificity of the measures at each level. The survey collects data from 213 German bank employees who attended a training program aimed at improving service quality. As hypothesized, the perceived practical relevance of the training was found to exert a strong influence on the reaction of the participants and had a substantial total effect on the motivation to transfer and on actual transfer. Subject to the limitations of the research methodology employed here, it is concluded that trainee satisfaction needs to be conceptually distinguished from perceived practical relevance and that the latter is the main driving force for transfer motivation and transfer.