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Employee training and learning have transformed over the years. The movement from classroom training to the blended format represents the magnitude of this evolution. This has placed much attention on self-regulated learning. This study aimed to understand the individual and organizational mechanisms that sustain the formal learning process in organizations. It explored the goals the organizations and employees strive to achieve by investing in learning. Through this, the authors investigated how technology assistance makes learning more goal-oriented, despite the possibility of different goals for different stakeholders. They also examined how person-job fit can be achieved in employee training.

The study adopted a grounded theory-based inductive approach using a qualitative inquiry that used in-depth interviews of employees working in the Indian IT/ITES sector. This sector is knowledge-intensive and engages in constant skill development. A content analysis of the interview transcripts unraveled the most relevant themes from the participants' discussion.

Individual learners use dimensions of self-regulated learning to set and achieve goals such as better performance and career development. On the other hand, organizations use learning support mechanisms such as better access and flexibility to direct employee learning behavior to achieve organizational goals. Focusing on goal congruence leads to better achievement of results. Goal congruence also implies good person-organization fit.

This research established how aligning individual and organizational mechanisms can help achieve training goals that ultimately contribute to organizational performance. The study differentiated itself by investigating training goal setting and goal achievement at two levels – organizational and individual – using a qualitative approach. It also showed how goal congruence is vital in improving organizational performance and how technology-enabled training practices rely on self-regulated learning and help achieve goal congruence.

This paper aims to use goal-setting theory to explain the transfer of knowledge and skills between master of business administration (MBA) and the workplace.

Data were obtained by an online survey of MBA students enrolled in at four US graduate business schools. These were a public and private institution in the Northeast region, a private sectarian institution in the Midwest region and a private institution in the Pacific region. All students worked while attending the university. The sampling frame consisted of each school’s MBA enrollees. Questionnaires were distributed to a random cross-section of part-time students at each graduate school of business representative of returned by 144 students. The profiles of responders were consistent with parameters for the entire MBA student population.

The research shows that multiple goals of reciprocal knowledge and skills transfer may be in harmony and mutually reinforcing. In principle, each goal is more likely to be attained with greater economy of effort than might be surmised. Additionally, the same forces may act similarly to facilitate attainment of two well-integrated goals, in this case transfer between MBA studies and work, as well as between work and MBA studies.

The present study involved participants from part-time public and private MBA granting institutions in the USA. The study tested and extended goal-setting theory and introduced the innovative concept of reciprocal transfer. Future studies should seek to generalize the findings to a broader population of part-time MBA students, especially from other nations. Despite its strengths, the findings of this study need to be interpreted in the perspective of some limitations. The current study did not measure transfer climates in either the organization or university settings. Transfer climates undoubtedly have an important bearing on transfer outcomes.

Review of the present study suggests that a positive MBA environment is needed to influence motivation to learn and perceptions of the MBA program’s utility, thereby promoting transfer of knowledge and skills to MBA studies from the workplace. A supportive work-to-MBA-studies transfer climate will lead to more active learning of course content that has greater relevance for achieving career goals. Potentially generalizable from the organizational transfer climate literature (Rouiller and Goldstein 1990; Rouiller and Goldstein 1993), positive transfer from work to MBA studies will occur when appropriate situational cues and consequences are present in the program.

A constructive implication suggested by the findings of this study would be the intervention and transfer management by educators to structure and strengthen the university transfer climate of their part-time MBA programs. Traditionally, the concept of transfer climate has been primarily applied to employee workplace training activity and job performance. The university culture of the MBA student might emphasize and reward continuous learning from workplace experiences. Opportunities at the university should be provided for the exercise of newly acquired workplace skills that reinforce MBA learning experiences.

This is the first study that shows how learning goals and performance goals are integrated in the context of a new concept, i.e. reciprocal transfer of knowledge and skills between MBA and workplace settings. It also demonstrates, for the first time, the impact of learning and motivation for MBA studies and perceived utility of MBA program on the extent of transfer of learning and skills from the workplace to the university setting.

The purpose of this study is to propose and examine an integrated learning model for improving training effectiveness in workplace learning. Specifically, this study investigated the effect of achievement goal-setting intervention across three groups of new employees from a multinational medical company. During a three-day remote training program, the role of each achievement goal orientation (AGO) in goal setting intervention and their relations with trainees’ applied learning strategies were examined. This study proposed and validated an integrated training model for improving remote workplace learning effectiveness.

This study was based on two data sources, the pre- and posttests scores; time on task (deep learning: completing reflective practice) and time on content learning (surface learning: watching tutorials) retrieved from an adaptive learning platform. A total number of 133 participants were recruited in this study, and they were randomly assigned to three interventional groups. The intervention was grounded from the AGO theory and goal setting theory. A series of statistical analysis were conducted to examine the effect of each type of achievement goal setting as a prompt for new employees’ learning behavior and performance.

Results indicated that setting mastery goal at the beginning of the training program leads to productive learning outcomes. Compared with the groups being required to set performance goal (final rank) or not to set any goal for the training purpose, trainees’ who were assigned to set a mastery goal (final performance score) performed statistically significantly higher than the other groups. Additionally, learners who set mastery goal spent higher proportion of time on deep learning than learners from the other groups. The results proved mastery goal setting as an effective prompt for boosting workplace learning effectiveness.

Organizations and institutions can take setting mastery approach goals as a prompt at the beginning of the training to increase learning effectiveness. In this way, trainees are promoted to apply more deep learning strategies and achieve better learning outcomes while setting mastery goal for their training purpose.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to combine the intervention of goal setting and types of AGOs into workplace learning. This study adds to previous research on goal setting theory and AGO theory for the practical application and proposes an effective model for learners’ adaptive remote learning. Findings of this study can be used to provide educational psychological insights for training and learning in both industrial and academic settings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between employees’ perceptions of high-involvement human resource (HR) practices, their levels of work engagement and learning goal orientation, and their proactive behaviors.

The sample of the study included 240 employees who work in Istanbul, Turkey, chosen from the major industries that represent the economic profile of this city. The hypotheses were tested with structural equation modeling procedure.

The results revealed that apart from perceived recognition, all the perceived high-involvement HR practices were positively related to employees’ work engagement, which in turn predicted their learning goal orientation. Besides, the results indicated that work engagement affected both individual innovation and feedback inquiry significantly, whereas learning goal orientation predicted only feedback inquiry. Finally, the findings revealed that only perceived empowerment and competency development practices were linked to feedback inquiry through work engagement and learning goal orientation.

The generalizability of the findings is limited. The data are based on self-report and the use of cross-sectional data does not allow any definite conclusions to be drawn about causality.

Organizations that aim to increase employee proactivity need first to identify the means of increasing work engagement. One way of increasing engagement levels among employees is to invest in various kinds of supportive, high-involvement HR practices, such as competence development and information sharing.

This study explores the notion of high-involvement HR practices with employee proactivity in an integrative way by viewing work engagement as a latent mechanism that links high-involvement HR practices to proactive behaviors both directly and indirectly via increased learning goal orientation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between protean career attitude and perceived internal and external employability, along with the mediating effect of learning-goal orientation.

Data were collected by distributing paper-based questionnaires to 527 workers in private banking sectors in Taiwan. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the results of the relationships.

The results supported the idea that protean career attitude is a significant antecedent of perceived internal and external employability. Protean talents with a higher degree of protean attitude toward value-driven career orientation and self-directed career management have an external employability that is greater than their internal employability. Learning-goal orientation fully mediated the effect of protean career attitude on perceived internal employability, but only partially mediated external employability.

The findings can help human resource managers gain a better understanding of the use of an appropriate strategy to influence an employee’s perceived internal and external employability, which can increase the motivation and improve employer-employee relationships that contribute to organizational success and performance. Employees should recognize the increased importance of continuous learning with goal-setting in order to deal with changes at work.

This paper empirically establishes the association between protean career attitude and perceived internal and external employability. The protean career concept may provide organizations with a valuable perspective in the evolution of careers. Valuable and protean talents place an emphasis on individuals’ core values, and while learning goals are meant to suit employer organizations, they may also establish opportunities that could cross-organizational boundaries.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of organizational identification on in‐role job performance and two learning behaviours, namely, feedback seeking and error communication. Furthermore, this research aims to establish the mediating role of learning goal orientation in the relationship between organizational identification and the three outcome variables.

Data for this paper were gathered from 130 high school teachers drawn from six schools operating in Pakistan. Multiple regression analyses were used to test the research hypotheses.

The results show that organizational identification has significant unique effects on in‐role job performance and error communication; whereas, it influences feedback seeking indirectly through learning goal orientation. Additionally, the findings of this paper reveal that learning goal orientation mediates the effects of organizational identification on the three outcome variables.

The present paper uses a cross‐sectional research design and hence it is not possible to make inferences about causation. Also, the data for this study are collected from a single source, which creates the problem of common method variance. However, in spite of these limitations the results of this study indicate that organizational identification can play a pivotal role in enhancing organizational effectiveness.

This is the first study which assesses the impact of organizational identification on learning goal orientation, feedback seeking and error communication. Moreover, it is one of the few studies which has empirically established the link between organizational identification and job performance.

Customer orientation of service employees relates to customer satisfaction and loyalty, sales growth and business performance. Drawing from conservation of resources (COR) theory, the aim of this study was to test the interactive effects of service employees' role clarity and learning goal orientation on customer orientation. Specifically, it was hypothesized that even under conditions of low role clarity, service employees with high learning goal orientation would maintain a high level of customer orientation.

Participants were 323 employees of 4- and 5-star hotels in Singapore. Using questionnaires, they reported their role clarity, learning goal orientation and customer orientation. For hypothesis testing, moderated regression analysis was performed.

Role clarity and learning goal orientation were significantly related to customer orientation, and in support of the hypothesis, the interaction effect of role clarity and learning goal orientation was also significant. With high role clarity, all employees showed high customer orientation. But with low role clarity, only employees with high learning goal orientation demonstrated high customer orientation.

The recommendations from this study are to include learning goal orientation as a selection criterion for service employees and to clearly define the roles of existing service employees, especially for those with low learning goal orientation.

The originality and value of this study lies in highlighting the importance of learning goal orientation especially under conditions of low role clarity.

Professional training courses play an important role for higher education instructors and their teaching quality. However, participants strongly differ in how much they learn in these courses. The present study seeks to explain these differences by focusing on attention as a central aspect of their behavioral engagement that can stem from participants' achievement motivations.

The authors investigated the attention of participants in full-day higher education professional training courses and how differences therein are associated with their achievement goals. Prior to course participation, 117 university instructors (49.6% male, 79.5% with PhD, average age 31.4 years) reported their achievement goals. Using an adapted observational instrument (Hommel, 2012a), two raters subsequently observed and coded the participants' attention during the course (ICC2 = 0.83).

The results documented very high attention levels, although with substantial interindividual differences. Multilevel analyses indicated that learning goals positively and work avoidance goals negatively predicted observed attention.

The findings provide insight into the value of an observational approach to measuring a fundamental aspect of learning engagement, and contribute to the understanding of interindividual differences in an important higher education learning environment. The study illuminates the relevance of personal predictors for university instructors' successful learning. Specifically, the findings point to the significance of goals as a relevant, but surprisingly hitherto uninvestigated, premise of learning engagement.

The purpose of this paper is to compare, and identify both similarities and differences in, affordances for vocational learning in two contrasting education systems, for construction worker and shop salesperson apprentices, in Swedish contexts.

Data were collected through interviews and observations in two research projects, each addressing relevant aspects of one of the focal educational systems. A framework consisting of identified goals, activities and guidance was applied in the analysis.

The results show that the affordances for learning in the examined educational systems are dependent on the learners’ access to, and participation in, workplace activities. A conclusion is that workplace demands override educational goals in both cases. Thus, the affordances for learning related to both individual and educational goals are dependent on the access to guidance during workplace activities.

The study highlights constraints between educational goals and workplace affordances in both apprenticeship systems, which largely develop vocational competencies related to specific workplace demands and activities. A presented model regards apprenticeships as vocational and educational training in workplaces is outlined that enable a deeper understanding of the correspondence between individual, educational and workplace goals that forms the type of activity which leads to a learning outcome.

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.