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The purpose of this paper was to examine the additive and joint effects of trainer directiveness and trainees’ learning goal orientation on training satisfaction and transfer.

Survey responses from a sample (N = 243) of undergraduate business students enrolled at a large US university were examined.

Trainer directiveness and trainee learning goal orientations each additively predicted training satisfaction and transfer over and above one another and study controls. Further, trainer directiveness and trainee learning goal orientation jointly predicted satisfaction and transfer, such that the positive relationship between trainer directiveness and both outcomes was accentuated (more positive) when learning goal orientations were high (compared to low).

This study suggests that scholars and practitioners need to be mindful of both trainer and trainee characteristics when evaluating potential training programs. In addition to selecting competent trainers, organizations might be well-served to encourage trainers to use a directive style. Further, organizations might be able to boost the positive effects of trainer directiveness on trainee satisfaction and transfer by priming (or selecting on) trainee learning goal orientations.

With few exceptions, prior research has devoted comparatively little attention toward understanding how trainer characteristics influence training outcomes. Of this research, even less considers possible interactions between trainer and trainee characteristics. The present study provides an initial step toward addressing these gaps by examining the additive and joint influences of trainer directiveness and trainee learning goal orientations. Results support that additional variance in training satisfaction and transfer can be explained by considering both trainer and trainee characteristics in tandem.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

What makes a good training course? This question feels relatively unasked given its importance, and there are few more important questions any human resources (HR) department or any other could pose. With an average budget in an organization of $1 million annually, there is a vast amount of resources that go into ensuring that the employees receive the best, most relevant training possible. As such, are we convinced that HR departments have the right information at their fingertips to assess just what makes the optimal training course for their people and organization?

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

It is commonly observed in trainings that all trainees do not get satisfied with the performance of the trainer. The usual way to increase the satisfaction of trainees is a stress on improving task communication of the trainer. It is based on the assumption that effective task communication essentially fosters training effectiveness. This study aims to provide preliminary evidence that effective task communication can also obstruct training effectiveness besides promoting it. To achieve this objective, the authors hypothesized a dual-process model of training effectiveness based on uncertainty reduction theory.

This was a field study in which the authors collected time-lagged data from seven trainings. The trainings were designed to impart technical knowledge of multilevel analyses to professional social science researchers. Confirmatory factor analysis for ordinal indicators was used to test the measurement properties of the model and scales. Structural equation modeling for ordinal indicators was used to test hypotheses.

This study provided evidence of an overall positive effect of the trainer’s task communication on the trainee’s communication satisfaction. A complex mediation analysis also revealed the existence of two opposite psychological processes. While the first process transmitted the positive effect of task communication to communication satisfaction, the other process diminished this positive effect. Implications for the theory and practice of training are discussed.

Training scholars and practitioners universally believe that an effective task communication of trainers essentially promotes training effectiveness. This study has provided empirical evidence that this assumption is an incomplete picture of a complex reality that requires further investigation.

Mentoring as a tool for the support and development of novices in many organisations has been considered a putative success. Nevertheless, the literature reveals a paucity of reporting of the mentoring strategies used within the policing profession within Australia. This paper aims to focus on what mentoring is and how it is deployed from the police mentor's perspective. This inquiry intends to shed light into this contextual gap by illuminating the mentoring experiences of 13 police officers from the district headquarters of a regional city in Southeast Queensland.

These officers, who presented with varying lengths of police service, were interviewed to ascertain their experiences of being a mentor, and to investigate whether they deployed what could be interpreted as a particular model of mentoring. Also considered were their perspectives and impressions of undertaking the role of mentor, their descriptions of how they mentored, and their preparedness for mentoring.

The interviews revealed a group of police officers that reported a belief in the mentoring process. Further, they considered themselves personally prepared for the role of mentor, and related this preparedness to either past experiences of being mentored, or past experience in the role itself. They placed little emphasis on formal training as a mentor, and more often than not, mentored in isolation. These officers rarely requested any collegial support from fellow mentors.

The data highlighted several implications for mentoring within the Queensland Police Service, one of which includes the effectiveness of the present formal preparation for mentors.

Given the complexity of societal, technological, and economic challenges encountered by schools and teachers, one may wonder whether and how teachers can still optimally motivate their students. To adopt a motivating role in today’s ever-changing, even stormy, educational landscape, teachers need more than a checklist of motivating practices. They also need a fundamental theoretical perspective that can serve as a general source of inspiration for their everyday classroom practices across various situations and in interaction with different students. Herein, we argue that self-determination theory represents such a valuable perspective. In Part I, we discuss the satisfaction of learners’ psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness as a source of student motivation, engagement, and resilience. We also present a recently developed circular model involving a broad variety of motivating (i.e., need-supportive) and demotivating (i.e., need-thwarting) teaching practices appealing to these three needs. In Part II, we discuss several implications of this circular model, thereby discussing the diverse pathways that lead to student need satisfaction, motivation, and engagement as well as highlighting teachers’ capacity for calibration to deal with uncertainty and change. We conclude that school principals and teachers do well to invest in both students’ and teachers’ psychological need experiences, such that they become skilled in flexibly adjusting themselves to diversity, uncertainty, and change.

Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.

This paper is based on my experiences of working as a third party in a large company in the confectionery industry. As part of an ongoing relationship in helping the company develop its approach to participation and involvement, a management working party was established to work out the potential for greater involvement at shop floor level through better job design and work organisation. Having carried out some research in this field I was invited to help this group in working out the problem and subsequently took the opportunity to analyse the nature of my role and the potential and problems associated with it.

The practice of consultancy primarily in the US is discussed and is broken down into five separate sections. The first section takes a look at the history of consulting and what trends it is taking into the 1990s. The second section takes a brief look at who does do consulting and what types of firms operate in consulting. The third and fourth sections are the heart of the article. The third section examines the different roles of consultants as looked at through two models. The fourth section examines the consulting analysis process and the diverse skills required to succeed in the field of consulting. Finally, the last section explains some of the most critical issues affecting the nature of training and developing individuals to be effective consultants.

The purpose of this paper is to formulate extended enterprise-oriented structure and process map for technical skill building for firms belonging to emerging economies.

The authors identify technical skill building (lies at the intersection of product, process and people) as a key enabler for furthering organizational competitiveness. The authors employ define measure explore develop implement- and supplier, input, process, output, and customer (SIPOC-) based framework for arriving at a technical skill building framework.

By utilizing the SIPOC-based framework, the authors identify the supplier(s), input(s), process(s), output(s) and customer(s) in the value chain of technical skill building as far as the extended enterprise is concerned.

The paper uses pragmatic and user-friendly conceptualization for technical skill building framework.