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A prevailing notion in the management development literature is that support for employee development by organizations is positively associated with organizational commitment by employees. This paper aims to examine whether learning and performance goal orientations of employees act as moderators of this effect. The authors hypothesized that support for development would have differential effects on commitment depending on the goal orientations of employees.

The data were obtained in a sample of 651 employees from across the US workforce using a two‐wave internet survey sampling method.

The authors found that perceived support for development is positively related to commitment for some workers; however, individual learning and performance orientations act as moderators. For some individuals, support for development by an organization will not be associated with greater commitment and might even be negatively associated with commitment.

The data are self‐reported; however, methodological steps were taken to reduce risk of a negative impact on results.

The notion that support for employee development enhances organizational commitment is widely accepted, and significant resources are sometimes devoted to leveraging development as a source of competitive advantage in recruiting and employee retention. The findings show the importance of understanding individual differences in this context because they may make a difference in how development affects commitment. Options are discussed for organizations in which learning and development are required and not all people are oriented toward learning.

This paper illustrates that it is important to understand psychological differences in employees to effectively understand and manage an employee development initiative to have optimal impact.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce new measures of stereotypical beliefs about older workers' ability and desire for learning and development and test relationships with key antecedents and outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – In a sample of workers over 40 years of age from across the US workforce, a two‐wave survey study was unique in that it examined stereotypes held by aging workers themselves in relation to their own behavior. Findings – The psychometric qualities of the scales were positive and findings tied the stereotype measures to important outcome constructs involving retirement, interest in development, and self‐efficacy/concept for development. Relationships of the stereotype measures also existed with antecedent variables, including experience with the stereotyped behavior and general beliefs about changes with aging. Research limitations/implications – These are critical constructs for managerial psychology in the coming decades, and the findings and measures presented here can contribute to future research, not only on older workers themselves but also on younger workers' stereotypes and behavior toward older workers, which were not addressed here. Practical implications – The measures can be used as diagnostic tools and the findings offer potential ideas for organizational policy or interventions to target stereotypes. Originality/value – Because employee development is increasingly important and the workforce is rapidly aging, there is a need to understand development behavior by aging workers. While stereotypes can be a problem in this area, there is a lack of measures of these stereotypes and there is no research on the stereotypes by aging workers themselves.

The purpose of the study is to develop a framework to evaluate employee satisfaction with the training program by capturing its key indicators.

An instrument was devised through an extensive literature review. Data from the respondents were subjected to analysis using the statistical software SPSS.

Four subscales were found to have a significant contribution towards establishment of an effective training program.

The study identified potential enablers of a successful training program. The research highlighted the needs of business to concentrate on building employee capacity and focusing on employee development to attain job satisfaction.

Where much of the research is focused on training effects, little research had been focused on development of an integrated scale for the measurement of training effectiveness. The study fills this gap and also undertakes the formulation of a scale measuring satisfaction with employee development interventions.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on developing and validating a multidimensional measure of work-related age-based stereotypes (WAS) scale.

Based upon a review of the literature, a three-dimensional stereotype content model including both negative (incompetence, inadaptability) and positive (warmth) stereotypes of older workers was created. Construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity for the WAS scale were examined across three independent samples constituting both lab-based experimental studies and a field-based survey (total n=1,245).

Across all samples, the WAS evidenced good construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity.

As evidenced by a review of the literature, the WAS is unique in that it measures both negative and positive stereotypes of older workers. Implications for research are discussed.