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The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of informal and formal learning processes on protection behavior with a focus on the role of resilience as a potential mediator.

Using web-based survey questionnaires on informal and formal learning, protection behavior, and resilience the survey collected information from 329 employees working in various organizations in India. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze employees’ protection behavior in protecting organization resources.

Findings indicate that informal learning has a significant positive effect on employees’ protection behavior, in protecting organization information. Further, resilience is found to be having a small mediation effect on informal learning and protection behavior relationships. Formal learning has no impact on employees’ protection behavior.

One of the scarce empirical research works that have substantiated the informal learning effect on organization protection behavior among employees.

Informal learning increasing the protection behavior has implications for the organizations in promoting social interactions. Formal learning not impacting protection behavior implies that organizations may reduce the expenses of sending their employees to formal training on information protection behavior.

The study discusses the importance of workplace learning in the current era of work and how organisations are shifting their focus toward employee learning and development. It highlights the need for employees to continuously up-skill themselves to keep up with the demand for skills. The purpose of this study is to introduce a modern approach to evaluating workplace learning to promote and enhance better performance within the workplace.

It introduces a deep modern learning approach called “behavior-oriented drive and influential functions of formal and informal learning”. The study also develops the concept of the “Study, Plan, Do, Check, and Act” framework to simulate practise and theory within and outside of work to allow continuous improvement, learning new workplace tools, and bridging digital transformation challenges. The study highlights that workplace learning occurs in a variety of contexts and uses various tools, which poses challenges for the design and development of technology that supports and analyses workplace learning.

Based on behaviour-orientated drive and influential functions for formal and informal learning, a grade of 6.54% days was registered for formal learning tools and 4.89% days for informal learning tools. From the statistics in this study, This study concluded that informal learning tools contribute more to the development of the workplace than formal learning. In informal learning, employees act autonomously at their own will and pace to obtain the required knowledge. The time to acquire knowledge through informal learning tools is shorter than in formal learning. Future relevant research should review more learning tools for formal and informal learning.

Modern workplace learning is a key tool for organisations to gain a competitive advantage. Learning based on formal training and development programs, informal learning and knowledge sharing influence the development of human capital resources.

The study combines social science and engineering approaches to enable non-engineers to pioneer execution of tasks and examine their performance based on the approach detailed in the results, methodology and discussion sections. It contributes to the field of learning organisations and organisational learning by exploring the learning processes of modern professionals. By investigating the learning practices and experiences of knowledge workers, this study seeks to identify the factors that promote or learn and the impact of learning on the workplace.

The purpose of this study is to understand how regulatory focus influences informal learning behaviors. A growing body of research indicates that regulatory focus has significant consequences for goal pursuit in the workplace, yet it has not been readily studied or applied to the field of human resource management (Johnson et al., 2015). This is one of the few studies to examine the relationship between informal learning and regulatory focus theory that can be applied to the training and development field.

Using a qualitative research design, a semi-structured interview was used to increase the comparability of participant responses. Questions were asked in an open-ended manner, allowing for a structured approach for collecting information yet providing flexibility for the sake of gaining more in-depth responses. An interview guideline was used to standardize the questions and ensure similar kinds of information were obtained across participants. A typological analytic approach (Lincoln and Guba, 1985) was used to analyze the data.

In a sample of 16 working adults, (44% female and 56% male), participants who were identified as having either a promotion- or prevention-focus orientation were interviewed about types of informal learning strategies they used. The results revealed that performance success and failure have differential effects on learning behaviors for prevention and promotion-focus systems. Stress and errors motivate informal learning for the prevention-focus system, whereas positive affect motivates informal learning for the promotion-focus system. Prevention-focus participants articulated greater use of vicarious learning, reflective thinking and feedback-seeking as methods of informal learning. Promotion-focus participants articulated greater use of experimentation methods of informal learning.

This study provides an in-depth understanding of how regulatory focus influences informal learning. Few studies have considered how regulatory focus promotes distinct strategies and inclinations toward using informal learning. Performance success and failure have differential effects on informal learning behaviors for regulatory promotion and prevention systems. This has theoretical and practical implications in consideration of why employees engage in informal learning, and the tactics and strategies they use for learning.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between task-based and interactional informal learning practices in small professional services firms and the moderating role of proactivity in the relationship.

Job demand-resources theory was used to develop theoretical arguments for a link between informal learning and work engagement. Data were collected from 203 employees in professional services firms and analysed using structural equation modelling.

Analysis of the data showed that opportunities to learn through task-based learning processes and through interactions with supervisors and colleagues were positively related to employees’ levels of work engagement. Furthermore, the strength of relationships between these informal learning practices and work engagement was influenced by employees’ proactivity.

The limitations pertain to the non-random sampling procedure, cross-sectional nature of the study and the use of self-report measures. These limitations were mitigated by employing rigorous analytical procedures.

The results suggest that managers are able to influence the quantity and quality of informal workplace learning through strategies such as selecting employees who have a propensity for proactive behaviour, encouraging proactive behaviour, enabling experimentation and reflection and fostering positive interpersonal relations.

The study links two streams of research that have seemingly not been connected previously. The results suggest that small firms are sites with abundant potential for development of employees’ knowledge and skills and the associated experiences of work engagement.

The goal of this study was to examine the mediating mechanism of informal learning between dimensions of learning climate and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). In addition, the study also aimed to investigate the learning climate, in the dimensions of learning facilitation, learning appreciation and error avoidance as antecedents of informal learning.

The data were gathered from sports items manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Sialkot, Pakistan. Sialkot is home to manufacturing businesses that export their products worldwide. Survey data of 318 middle managers collected at 2 different times were used for testing the research model using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results demonstrate that facilitation and appreciation learning climate have a positive relationship with informal learning and error-avoidance has a negative relationship with informal learning. The analysis also revealed that informal learning mediated the linkage between learning climate dimensions and OCB. Moreover, informal learning is significantly related to OCB.

HR practitioners and organizational leaders of SMEs can use, encourage and promote informal learning to improve the skills and knowledge of employees at low cost. For instance, management should strategically implement informal learning at the workplace by providing a supportive learning climate.

Previous studies have overlooked the impact of informal learning on OCB and its mediating effect. The present study addresses this gap by examining the mediating mechanism of informal learning between learning climate and OCB.

This paper aims to explore how negative emotions lead to differential relationships with informal learning. Informal learning is posited to serve as a coping mechanism and positively influence performance.

This paper provides a conceptual, process-based framework to explain the relationship between informal learning and stressful emotions of anger and anxiety.

The proposed framework in this paper suggests that informal learning in conjunction with emotion regulation can help neutralize negative emotions and promote improved cognitive functioning, better social functioning and higher task performance. From a practical perspective, the provided framework should help managers and organizational leaders better understand the emergence of negative emotion and how to constructively channel employee well-being from them.

Much of the informal learning literature has investigated dispositional and situational influences, without regard to the role that discrete emotions play in influencing cognitive, behavioral and motivational learning processes. This paper addresses this gap through a theoretical framework that explains the relationship between negative emotions and informal learning.

This study aims to empirically examine the relationship between the leader characteristic of humility and the informal learning of team members. It also evaluates the role of leader authenticity in mediating that relationship.

Data were collected on 518 salespeople reporting to 66 managers in a time-lagged study of a financial services firm. Generalized structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data and test a multi-hierarchical mediation model.

Leader humility has a significant positive direct and indirect effect on individual informal learning in team contexts, and leader authenticity partially mediates this relationship.

This study advances research on how leaders can help transform learning from a risky endeavor to a daily practice. It shows the impact of the leadership characteristic of humility and explains how humble behaviors provide a model for individual learning in team contexts. It also reveals that leader authenticity is a key mechanism through which leader humility comes to influence employees’ informal learning within work teams.

This study provides empirical support for the importance of leader humility in engendering the trust required for employees to engage in everyday workplace learning. It integrates social information processing theory with social learning theory to show that humble leaders provide critical information about the value, cost and methods of individual informal learning in team contexts. Leader humility increases employees’ beliefs that they can and do learn from working in teams because employees perceive the humble leader’s behaviors as representing the leader’s true intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the role of informal learning behaviors in increasing the social capital of organizations. The paper provides a brief overview of social capital and informal learning and proposes to interlink them for increasing knowledge capability of organizations.

Drawing on a review of social capital theory and informal learning behaviors, this article presents a conceptual approach for practitioners to deploy informal learning behaviors to increase social capital and subsequently, the knowledge capability of their organizations.

With the fast-changing global business scenario and limited availability of capital to invest in formal training behaviors, organizations continue to face difficulties in increasing their knowledge capability. This article suggests a simple, cost-effective and easy-to-deploy method of employing informal learning behaviors to build and sustain social capital and through it the knowledge capabilities of organizations.

There is currently limited research into the applicability of using informal learning behaviors in the field of social capital and knowledge capability building.

This study aims to innovate by investigating the effects of goal orientations on informal learning strategies and whether intrinsic motivation mediates the relation between those two constructs.

To address these aims, the author relied on a quantitative study and on structural equation modeling to evaluate the relationships prescribed by the research model. The hypotheses were tested on a sample of 244 bank managers from Brazilian banks.

Results show that mastery goal orientation positively relate with both informal cognitive and behavioral learning strategies in the workplace.

This paper has contributed to the discussion concerning the effects of goal orientations on managers’ informal learning strategies, complementing previous research on the antecedents of informal learning.

This study examines whether learning climate relates to employability competences through social informal learning (i.e. feedback, help and information seeking).

Multiple regression analyses and structural equation modeling were used to test direct and indirect effects in a sample of 372 employees working in two Dutch governmental institutes.

The analyses confirmed that learning climate has an indirect effect on employability competences through feedback, help and information seeking. More specifically, the findings suggest that learning climate is important for employees' engagement in proactive social informal learning activities. Engaging in these learning activities, in turn, relates to a higher level of employability.

This study employs an integrative approach to understanding employability by including the organization's learning climate and employees' social informal learning behavior. It contributes to the extant literature on professional development by unraveling how proactive social informal learning relates to employability competences. It also provides new insights on learning climate as a determinant for social informal learning and employability.