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This paper aims to contribute to a general understanding of mental practice by investigating the utility of and participant reaction to a virtual reality maintenance training among underground coal mine first responders.

Researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Office of Mine Safety and Health Research (OMSHR) developed software to provide opportunities for mine rescue team members to learn to inspect, assemble and test their closed-circuit breathing apparatus and to practice those skills. In total, 31 mine rescue team members utilized OMSHR’s BG 4 Benching Trainer software and provided feedback to the development team. After training, participants completed a brief post-training questionnaire, which included demographics, perceived training climate and general training evaluation items.

The results overall indicate a generally positive reaction to and high perceived utility of the BG 4 benching software. In addition, the perceived training climate appears to have an effect on the perceived utility of the mental practice virtual reality game, with benchmen from mines with more positive training climates reporting greater perceived efficacy in the training’s ability to prepare trainees for real emergencies.

This paper helps to broaden current applications of mental practice and is one of the few empirical investigations into a non-rehabilitation virtual reality extension of mental practice. This paper also contributes to the growing literature advocating for greater usage of accurate and well-informed mental practice techniques, tools and methodologies, especially for occupational populations with limitations on exposure to hands-on training.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between employee share ownership (ESO) and employer-provided training. To be more specific, as both ESO and involvement practices can contribute to developing human capital, the paper addresses the question of whether they are substitutes or complements in the relationship with training.

The theoretical hypotheses are tested using the French nationally representative establishment-level survey, REPONSE, which is similar to the British WERS. The sample consists of 1,523 establishments.

The results are consistent with studies conducted elsewhere (e.g. in the UK) and provide novel findings, thereby suggesting a complementarity between ESO and involvement practices with bundles of practices becoming increasingly more complex as training expenditures increase.

To provide further insights, future research that uses more precise information regarding ESO plans is needed.

Results can provide HR managers with valuable information regarding the organisational characteristics necessary to ensure a fertile ground for their training expenses.

The paper reflects a growing awareness that human capital development and share ownership plans may be related and that this relationship might be a more compelling explanation for share ownership plans than the standard agency theory. The contribution of ESO plans to the development of employee competencies may be at least as important as their possible effects on employee motivation and effort.

This study aims to identify the relationship between different maintenance practices and productive efficiency in continuous process productive plants as well as the moderating effect of good training practices.

The empirical data were drawn from a database containing 609 observations of 29 productive units. Scales were validated using the Q-sort method. The panel data technique was used as the analysis methodology, with the inclusion of fixed effects for each productive plant.

Maintenance practices can effectively contribute to increasing the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) of firms. Application of predictive maintenance practices should be considered as the primary training tool.

This study used a secondary database, limiting the research design and data manipulation.

The article provides practitioners with an analysis of maintenance practices by category (predictive, preventive and corrective), and the impact of each practice on the OEE of continuous process productive plants. Moreover, it explores the importance of training for extracting more results from maintenance practices.

Companies are investing in new technologies, but it is also essential to invest in training people. There is a demand for Industry 4.0 through the introduction of upskilling and reskilling programs.

This study used practice-based view (PBV) theory to explain how maintenance practices help firms achieve greater OEE. Furthermore, it introduced training practice as a moderating variable in the relationship between maintenance practices and OEE.

Quality educational leadership preparation has positive influences on practices of graduates. In the Finnish decentralized education system, little is yet known about the sources of principals’ practices. This research explores the sources of principals’ self- assessed leadership practices in Central Finland and identifies areas for more emphasis. Respondents were selected by purposive sampling. This multiple case study employed eight semi-structured individual interviews as means of data collection. Inductive content analysis was performed. From the findings, besides personal experiences, knowledge from course, and field work, leadership and networking are also major sources of principals' practices. Training positively enhances the practices of principals as they engage in more collaboration and trust. Notwithstanding, professional development is essential for principals to stay relevant to the contemporary world of today and to be confident to face future challenges. Methods of course delivery, management of human and financial resources, as well as creating and sustaining local and international collaborations with other training institutions should be prioritized to improve on training.

Sources highlight that lack of systematic labour training components results in low performance and productivity of labour, which leads the construction industry of many countries to face various challenges. This study aims to quantify the variations in the performance and productivity levels of labour in building construction projects through the applications of effective work-based training components.

A comprehensive literature review and a series of experts’ discussions with action-oriented communication approaches were conducted to develop a set of practices related to labour training, performance assessment and productivity measurements within a framework. The developed practices were applied to around 100 labourers working on nine building construction projects through a construction supervisory training programme.

The study presents the detailed patterns of the significant changes in labour performance and productivity levels. The majority of trained labourers have grown to perform the work process with some relevant theoretical and operational knowledge and skills. The overall results spotlight the significant behavioural changes that can be observed in workforce operations by improving labour performance, which resulted in implementing effective labour-rewarding practices within a framework.

Although the study findings were limited to the Sri Lankan context, the proposed practices can be applied to the industry practices of the construction sector of other developing countries and the other developing industries in similar ways/scenarios.

The study outcomes contribute to uplifting the work qualities of labourers with life-long learning opportunities and unlocking the potential barriers for expanding the local labour supply while controlling the excessive inclination of the local firms towards foreign labour. This paper describes further implications and future scopes of the study elaborately.

The study provides generalised mechanisms and practices that transform the labour characteristics and add new attributes for strengthening the values of construction supervision practices to obtain well-improved work outputs. The study outcomes reinforce the chain relationships among the training elements, labour performance and productivity levels, leading to upgrading current planning and operational management practices, especially adding constructive mechanisms in resource levelling and productivity benchmarking practices.

This study seeks to determine differences between recruitment processes and methods and training practices used in small and large businesses in the retailing, manufacturing, and tourism sectors in an emerging economy, Barbados.

The research utilized a quantitative survey covering 49 retailing, manufacturing and tourism‐oriented organizations to ascertain whether small organizations practice the procedures and methods outlined in the prescriptive literature on recruitment and training compared with large organizations. Institutional theory and resource‐based view informed the research.

It was found that recruitment processes and methods and training practices vary among small and large organizations. It suggests that, in Barbados, small businesses are likely to rely on informal recruitment methods and informal training practices compared with large businesses.

This study is only conducted across the retailing, manufacturing and tourism sectors in Barbados. The findings may have implications for management in other sectors, and small and large businesses in emerging economies.

The results provide academics and managers in both large and small businesses with insights into recruitment and training practices in small and large businesses in an emerging economy.

This paper contributes to the limited research done on recruitment and training activities among small‐sized and large‐sized firms in the English‐speaking Caribbean.

The National Training Reform Agenda (NTRA) (1989‐1996) was the first iteration of a series of reforms designed to make the Australian workforce more skilled, efficient and productive. This paper critically examines how women became “(un)known” in these policy texts in relation to work and training. It also examines contemporaneous practices in some workplaces that assigned certain work identities to women and examines how the women resisted or acquiesced to these assigned identities within the discursive field of the workplace. Comparisons of the positioning effects of policy and workplace practices are made and an argument is presented regarding the marginalisation of women within seemingly benign policy discourses and organisational practices.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between home-to-work spillover, measured as positive and negative home–work interference (HWI) and turnover intentions, as well as the mediating role of perceptions concerning training and development practices.

Data were collected among 418 respondents who were working at two business schools. A confirmative structural equation modeling analysis was conducted for the analysis.

As expected, positive HWI showed negative relationships with turnover intentions, while negative HWI related positively to turnover intentions. Training and development practices mediated the relationship between positive HWI and turnover intentions; the mediation effect was stronger for women than it was for men. Training and development practices did not mediate the relationship between negative HWI and turnover intentions, however.

The outcomes suggest that helping employees to balance their work and home lives can be beneficial for employees, as well as for employers in terms of reducing turnover intentions.

As contributions, additional insight into the relationship between positive and negative non-work factors and turnover intentions by examining the ways in which both positive as well as negative HWI are related to turnover intentions. Furthermore, the research considers the mediating role played by perceptions concerning human resource (HR) practices, and particularly training and development practices as perceived by the employee, in the relationship between positive and negative HWI and turnover intentions.

Despite the efficacy, political will and numbers of mental health practitioners trained in psychosocial interventions, they remain scarcely available in routine clinical practice. External factors such as the inability of mental health organisations to develop strategies to support the use of psychosocial interventions have been implicated. This study compares data from two groups, one that had completed psychosocial intervention training (n=104) and one that had not received psychosocial intervention training (n=102). Both groups completed measures of self‐efficacy, locus of control and an application of psychosocial interventions to practice. Results showed that psychosocial intervention training significantly increased the level of self‐efficacy for using psychosocial interventions in practice. The group that had received psychosocial interventions training had lower internal locus of control orientation. Self‐efficacy was significantly related to using psychosocial interventions in practice. There is a discussion of the implications of these findings.

The purpose of this paper was to test the mediating role of training duration in relationship between firm characteristics and training evaluation practices. In this paper, the authors also investigated if this mediating effect differs with respect to the size of the firm.

The authors collected data from 260 professionals of 90 call centers.

The authors found that training duration mediates the relationship between firm size and training evaluation. The authors also found that indirect effect of firm size on training evaluation through training duration differs across different levels of firm size but not across different levels of ownership.

This is a cross-sectional study that emphasized on training evaluation practices only.

The study has implication for both evaluation researchers and practitioners in terms of designing training evaluation policies and practices.

This is the first study in its nature that explains the intervening role of training duration in relationship of firm characteristics and training evaluation practices.