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A review of relevant literature shows that the effectiveness of management training in Arab countries is generally estimated to be low. It is argued that improving this effectiveness is impeded by negative attitudes towards training among Arab managers. While some of these attitudes are found to have cultural or bureaucratic origins, low training effectiveness may itself generate and sustain such attitudes. Some of the factors explaining this low effectiveness are: lack of rigorous need assessment, deficiencies in programme design and evaluation, excessive reliance on conventional techniques, inadequate training materials and the shortage of qualified trainers. Measures to rectify this situation are also recommended.

Corporate trainers' credibility has been universally ignored by researchers and its significance has remained elusive across cultures. Thus, the purpose of this present paper is to examine variations of trainers' credibility determinants in Canada and Morocco.

A comparative qualitative study with in‐depth interviews and the grounded theory approach were adopted to carry out the research. Participants in the study consisted of 60 civil servants employed in various governmental departments in Canada and Morocco.

A framework identifying distinct categories based on common determinants of trainers' credibility was constructed for each respective country. These categories were attributed the following designations: qualifications, perceived competence, perceived justice and perceived confidence for the Canadian sample; and qualifications, perceived competence, and personal attributes for the Moroccan sample. Similarities surfaced regarding some of the determinants in both cultures such as qualifications, and competence. However, Canadian respondents emphasized trainers' performance, fairness and confidence, while Moroccan trainees valued wisdom (hikma), honesty (sidk), trust (amanah) and the trainer as a role model.

The findings indicate that cultural values ought to be considered in trainers' credibility in efforts to enhance the level of comprehension regarding credibility determinants that could impact training success and effectiveness. It is also recommended that organizations consider taking into account the determinants of credibility during the selection process of trainers who will be primarily tasked with delivering corporate training to employees locally or in various cultural settings.

The paper provides groundbreaking insights as it is the first study to investigate trainers' credibility across cultures by resorting to an emic approach to provide a cross‐cultural perspective on the subject.

The survey described in this report was an investigation of a number of questions concerning trainers and research: what practising trainers think about research; the extent to which they are involved in or with research; the sources from which they get information about research findings and new developments; whether board‐sponsored research is getting through to them; their familiarity with a range of research tools and methods; their knowledge and assessment of a number of books, pamphlets and articles relevant to trainers and their work; and what problems trainers have with which they believe research could help them. The survey was conducted during the six months between April to September 1973.

A basic assumption of many management trainers and course promoters is that the training/learning event — the lesson — is the major variable on which the success of their work depends, subject only to the need to have some degree of homogeneity of trainees if it is a group event. Thus many courses are designed in detail before places on them are offered for sale, before the individual trainees have clarified what each of them is prepared to learn. The burden of this article is that there are in the management training process five interdependent variables: the new behaviour required, the trainee's work environment, the trainee himself, the lesson that he experiences, and the trainer. So that the lesson — the trainer's input — needs to vary in each case according to the other four variables. And so that the actual behaviour which results — which may or may not be the new behaviour that is required — will in turn reflect the mix of the remaining variables too.

Education and training are critical factors for achieving the Lisbon strategy's objectives of encouraging economic growth, competitiveness and social inclusion in the European Union (EU). The role of continuing vocational training (CVT) and its contribution to personal development and fulfilment is increasingly recognised in EU Member States' National Reform Programmes. In this context the main objective of this paper is to establish a ranking of the importance of the competences required by CVT trainers in Spain according to national lifelong learning (LLL) standards.

A combination of literature review analysis and evaluation of experts' participation is used, based on two‐round e‐Delphi techniques. The literature review analysis identified the criteria, sub‐criteria and indicators that describe the trainers' basic (pedagogical) and specific (skills, abilities, aptitude/attitude and attributes) competences. The questionnaire summarises a wide range of competences and skills related to Spanish trainers. It was distributed among 20 national experts (with experience ranging from three to 30 years in informal and non‐formal training and professional profiles such as training manager, high manager, training programmer, trainers and tutors among others) in order to evaluate the importance of different competences.

The analysis of the e‐Delphi expert evaluation yields two main findings. First, it provides a unique e‐Delphi draft that contains trainers' professional competences in a non‐formal permanent learning context. Second, it also includes the evaluation of their importance by 20 Spanish experts who are considered to be a qualitative national sample.

The role of European and Spanish trainers has changed in the last two decades. Trainers need wide recognition of their professional profile in a LLL framework. This requires the recognition of new and renewal of traditional competences, so that they can work as professionals of non‐formal education and assume responsibilities.

CVT takes on a variety of forms in different countries and also within a given country. Thus the identification and anticipation of competences and skills required by trainers as important actors on whom training quality and efficiency depends is important. In this case study, the analysis of the expert evaluations shows that specific competences/skills (personal abilities, attitudes in classroom and workshop), are very important in developing a trainer's professional figure. Traditional pedagogical competences (planning, imparting and evaluation) are not forgotten, but new skills have additional characteristics such as “identification, and analysis of training needs”, “training management”, “training implementation” and participant focus.

What contribution can the trainer make to the organisation? How can we go about assessing the level of contribution? These are two key questions that any manager may well ask. Yet, by far, most training research effort has been concerned with looking at the secondary issue of “training technology”. Nadler summed this up in the following way:

The number of part‐time trainers is unknown but within some training specialisms they can form a substantial cohort. Often, however, their development is not supported adequately, if at all, within their working environments. Considers self‐development from the individual perspective of six English as a Second Language (ESL) peripheral trainers. Explores how a profession’s attitude towards its members and self‐actualization can influence the development of its practitioners. Also considers the significance of the internal impact of the organization on restricting the possibilities of self‐development. The implication is that professions need to be more supportive of peripheral trainers; that organizations need to be more imaginative and responsive towards engendering self‐responsibility for personal learning; and that individual trainers need to be more strategic and proactive in facilitating their own self‐development.

The changing perception of the nature of managerial jobs has had profound implications for management trainers and developers. Some managers′ role has evolved from task managers to people and role player. Trainers can no longer rely solely on provision of the task‐related management training; rather they are expected to become familiar with people, self and career development skills and expertise. The need for positive transfer has placed yet another obligation on management trainers. Nowadays, they are expected to acquire relevant skills and expertise which enable them to empower the trainees to transfer the acquired knowledge skills, values, attitudes and behaviour to the workplace.

The purpose of this study is to identify individual and contextual influences on in-house safety trainers’ role orientation toward the transfer of training (TT).

The authors tested a model where felt-responsibility for TT mediates the influence of job resources (i.e. autonomy, access to resources, access to information and organizational support) on trainers’ definition of their role and where training safety climate exerts a moderator effect. Data were collected from 201 Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) professionals, all in-house safety trainers, of large public and private companies. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

The model highlighted the mediating influence of felt-responsibility in the interplay between job resources and role orientation, the moderating influence of safety climate on the relationship of autonomy and organizational support on role definition, but not access to resources and access to information on role definition in the TT. Results suggest that how much safety trainers consider supporting the TT as a part of their overall role is affected by autonomy and organizational support through a sense of responsibility regarding training results, and these effects are influenced by the perceived importance of safety training to the organization.

The study is cross-sectional and used self-reported data, meaning that causal inferences should be carefully drawn. Further studies should explore other sources of influence over felt-responsibility, for example, supervisors’ support for transfer, the relationship between how in-house safety trainers define their role in the transfer process and trainees’ effective application of their new knowledge and skills.

Companies should overtly signal the importance of safety training to in-house safety trainers because it will elicit, by reciprocity, a greater sense of personal responsibility and increased efforts concerning training success.

No previous research looked at how in-house trainers define their role in the TT, as well as the individual and contextual factors that influence their efforts toward the efficacy of training.

Learning from errors is important for employees, particularly at early stages of their career. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of perceived trainer responses to errors on trainee learning from errors in a workplace setting. In Study 1, the authors test a model that examines the associations between perceived trainer responses to errors and trainee learning from errors, which are mediated by affective-motivational adaptivity. In Study 2, the authors further hypothesize that the link between perceived trainer responses and affective-motivational adaptivity is moderated by perceived error climate.

The authors test the hypotheses using data from 213 Swiss apprentices (Study 1) and 1,012 German apprentices (Study 2) receiving dual vocational training.

Study 1 suggests that negative trainer reaction impedes trainee learning from errors by impairing trainees’ affective-motivational adaptability. Trainer tolerance of errors and trainer support following errors were not related to trainee learning from errors. Study 2 indicates that perceived error climate is an important boundary condition that affects the relationship between trainer responses and trainee learning from errors.

This study contributes to research on learning from errors in three ways. First, it enriches the understanding regarding the role of trainers in enhancing learning from errors in organizations. Second, it extends research on learning from errors by investigating the interaction effects between perceived trainer responses and error climate. Third, it refines knowledge about the role of positive affect in learning from errors. Findings of this study also offer practical insights to trainers and managers regarding what they should do to encourage trainee learning from errors.