Independent Variable Training And Career Development Management Essay

LITERATURE REVIEW:

To cope with the speedy rate of change or alternations, organizations are more and more challenged with developing significant training programs for its members as a way to compete and succeed in today’s unpredictable environment. Pfeiffer (2000) argues that training can be a source of competitive advantage in several industries for firms with the knowledge to use it.

Katz (1998) highlights that although large corporations spend over $50 billion on training expenditure, effective employee learning is diminished. Another author Prahalad (2000) also wires employee learning by stating that training should be considered a part of career development for managers that include both the methodical and empirical side of management.

Training is defined as the organized acquisition of skills, rules, ideas, or mind-sets that result in improved performance (Goldstein, 1993); now part of organizational learning and change, employee evaluation, and career development is training (White and Mackenzie-Davey, 2003).

At another place training is defined by (Campbell, Dunnette, Lawler, & Weick, 1970) as a planned learning practices designed to bring about unending change in an individual’s information, attitudes, or abilities.

Employee training has turn into more rampant today than 15 years ago, many companies conduct training simply for appearance sake (Hughey and Mussnug, 1997), instead of focusing on adult learning and growth (Wills, 1994; Hollenback and Ingols, 1990; Humphrey, 1990); Kolb’s (1984) experimental learning (Whetten and Clark, 1996); and cognitive aptitude (Carter, 2002).

Training and organization development activities are receiving increased consideration in the industrial and academic communities at present. According to Huber, organizations spend upwards of $30 billion dollars yearly for training plans involving 15 billion work hours (Huber, 1985).

The German apprenticeship system has turn into the focus of much recent writing, studying the financing of such training (Soskice 1994; Oulton and Steedman 1994; Harhoff and Kane 1997; Acemoglu and Pischke 1998). This literature concludes, contrary to the forecasts of Becker (1964), that firms pay a share of the training expenditure of apprentices, even though the qualifications of apprentices are largely broad skills.

The “bottom line” for most training plans is effectiveness; less concentration has been allocated to studying why training programs are effective for some individuals and fruitless for others. Training effectiveness typically is determined by evaluating some combination of the criteria presented in Kirkpatrick’s (1967) hierarchical model of training outcomes. This hierarchy is made up of four levels of training outcomes:

(a) Trainees’ reactions to the program content and training procedure (reaction);

(b) Knowledge or skill attainment (learning);

(c) Behavior change (behavior); and

(d) Development in tangible individual or organizational outcomes such as turn-over, accidents, or productivity (results).

Each stage of the hierarchy is exaggerated by each training result. Trainees’ satisfaction with the program is believed to have an main impact on learning, the content of the training program must be mastered to some degree for enhancements in on-the-job behavior, and behavior change is important for constructive changes in results such as quality or quantity of production.

The overall economy is affected by the organization’s choice whether or not to train its workers, even if the firm does not factor the economy into its choice. If all firms within an industry not succeed to train their workers, the whole economy suffers. Hence, training workers is a type of public good, a category that encompasses a broad range of social dilemmas. Employees face a similar dilemma in their choice of how much to contribute to the overall productivity of the organization. If employees receive a share of the profits regardless of their contribution, some may decide to free ride on the efforts of their fellow workers. If all employees decide to do so, the company will fail.

The two dilemmas on the employee and organizational levels are closely interconnected. On one side, the benefits of training accumulate only to the extent that employees contribute to the organization. Thus, a firm should take into relation how it expects a training program to affect employee effort as well as employee turnover. On the other side, trained workers produce at higher rates, which in turn may affect how much they contribute and how often they migrate to other firms in comparison with untrained workers.

Another way of training your employees in the organization is the mentorship like apprenticeship on which literature suggests that mentoring enhances work effectiveness (Kram, 1985) and job success (Roche, 1979; Stumpf and London, 1981; Hunt and Michael, 1983; Fagenson, 1989). It has also been suggested that training have an important influence on promotion decisions (Stumpf and London, 1981; Hunt and Michael, 1983).

Kram (1985) presented an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms through which mentoring affects careers and identified two dimensions of these developmental relationships: Vocational (career coaching) and psycho-social (social support).

Career success of managers has generally been defined in terms of performance and the popular symbols of success: Money and position (Hall, 1976; Feldman, 1989).

Exploratory Behavior. Hall (1976) defined a career as the “individual’s perceived sequence of attitudes and behaviors associated with work-related experiences and activities over the span of the person’s life” Super and his associates’ theory of adult career development defines four work-relevant life stages: exploration, establishment, maintenance, and decline (Super, 1957; Super, Crites, Hummel, Moser, Overstreet, & Warnath, 1957).

Jordaan (1963) emphasized exploratory behavior as a key determinant of occupational success and satisfaction. Exploratory behavior refers to mental or physical activities undertaken with the purpose of eliciting information about oneself or one’s environment, or forming decisions regarding occupational adjustment, progression, or choice. Exploratory behavior includes self-assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of skills, career values, interests, goals, or plans, as well as the search for job-related information from family, friends, counselors, and other career information outlets (Mihal, Sorce, & Compte, 1984; Stumpf, Colarelli, & Hartman, 1983).

Additionally, the extent to which individuals engage in career planning, a type of exploratory behavior, is related to the likelihood of participation in self-development activities, salary level, and advancement (Gould, 1979; Super & Hall, 1978). Gould’s (1979)

Career planning scale assesses the extent to which career plans exist, how frequently career plans are changed, how clear career plans are, and whether or not a strategy exists for achieving career goals.

The relationship between exploratory behavior and training effectiveness is unknown. One possible hypothesis is that trainees who frequently engage in cognitive or environmental search activities are likely to have a better under-standing of their strengths, weaknesses, and interests. This results in a high level of motivation to learn in training programs which are congruent with their career goals. These individuals are likely highly motivated to learn because of the self-realization of skill weaknesses resulting from their investments and interests in career growth and progression as evidenced by the frequency and intensity of exploratory type be-saviors.

Career workshops provided by the organization may provide employees with a clearer picture regarding career paths and the prerequisite-site skills for horizontal and vertical movement throughout the organization. So training is the significant part for the career development in any organization.