Company‐based education programmes: what's the pay‐off for employers?

Abstract

This article addresses the question of whether company‐based programmes of education repay employer investment in terms of learning transfer to the workplace. Building on earlier work by the authors, we use an in‐depth longitudinal case study of a long‐standing programme of continuous education sponsored by the US‐based NCR corporation in Scotland. As educators, we expected to find that the programme would have been associated with positive outcomes, based on the belief that 'embrained' or formal, abstract knowledge can be transferred to the workplace. We were aware, however, that research in this area has not been promising in demonstrating learning transfer, in part because such a process is mediated by the quality of the transfer climate. Drawing on survey data and in‐depth interviewing of a sample cohort, we found that the programme of company‐based education had significant implications for learning transfer. Surprisingly, however, transfer climate had little influence on the willingness of employees to use their knowledge to make improvements or generate innovations at work. Finally, we found that these data supported situated learning theory, stressing the importance of tacit knowledge, informal learning, the communal nature of workplace learning and the difficulties in evaluating learning transfer. We believe that these results have important implications for the literature on the evaluation of HRD interventions, for human resource development (HRD) specialists interested in developing programmes of so‐called lifelong learning and for practitioners working in the area of organisational learning and learning organisations.

Accrediting competencies: a case of Scottish vocational qualifications

“…We take such findings to be in line with those researchers who have argued for the importance of work-based, situated learning to employees, especially when compared to schooled learning or embrained knowledge (Martin et al, 2001). There is little doubt that the literature on situated learning shows that people learn and acquire knowledge about how to do their work from tacit learning, either individually or in``communities of practice'' (Sealy Brown, 2000).…”

Towards a New Theory of VET Policy Evaluation and Engagement: A Multiple Stakeholder Approach

“…Even less research has been done on why employees choose to engage in training and what value they derive from it. The research on employees' perspectives tends to be dominated by the issue of learning transfer, and the factors that facilitate or hinder the application of learning in the workplace, and cite the importance of factors such as supportive work environments and supervisors, quality and relevance of training and employee commitment (Martin et al, 2001;Rainbird & Munroe, 2003;Santos & Stuart, 2003;Velada et al, 2007). From the few studies I was able to review, the consensus is that workers engage in training for economic as well as non-economic reasons (C. Dunn, 2007;Learner Perspectives of Industry Training, 2007).…”

Towards a New Theory of VET Policy Evaluation and Engagement: A Multiple Stakeholder Approach

“…Even less research has been done on why employees choose to engage in training and what value they derive from it. The research on employees' perspectives tends to be dominated by the issue of learning transfer, and the factors that facilitate or hinder the application of learning in the workplace, and cite the importance of factors such as supportive work environments and supervisors, quality and relevance of training and employee commitment (Martin et al, 2001;Rainbird & Munroe, 2003;Santos & Stuart, 2003;Velada et al, 2007). From the few studies I was able to review, the consensus is that workers engage in training for economic as well as non-economic reasons (C. Dunn, 2007;Learner Perspectives of Industry Training, 2007).…”