Opportunities to improve skills and to teach and train others: employee outcomes in the United States and Japan

Abstract

Opportunities to improve skills and opportunities to teach or train others may be associated with job satisfaction, work engagement and organizational commitment. The analysis reported in this paper used a subsample of 823 employees within two Japanese and three American worksites. We tested not only the direct relationships of each type of training opportunity (to improve skills and to teach or train others) with each of three outcomes (job satisfaction, work engagement and organizational commitment) but also the potential moderating roles of performance orientation, job security and age. The relationships were assessed separately for Japanese and American respondents. The results highlight the importance of opportunities to improve skills for all three outcomes and of opportunities to teach and train for job satisfaction and work engagement. Performance orientation, job security and age generally were not significant moderators and, when they were, the effects were typically restricted to one country. The consistently positive coefficients for training opportunities should provide insight for cross-national organizations seeking to identify human resource policies effective across varying cultural, economic and demographic contexts.

A systematic review of human capital and employee well-being: putting human capital back on the track

“…The availability of training opportunities translates organizations' priority for human capital development and stimulates employees' perception of a favourable workplace, promoting improved well-being behaviours, such as job satisfaction and work engagement (Ogbonnaya et al , 2018). Correspondingly, Lee et al (2014) proposed signalling theory (ST) that indicates the opportunities to improve competence represent how good an employer is. The successful implementation of training requires sufficient organizational support (Liu and Liu, 2020) and social support from colleagues and supervisors (Ertan and Şeşen, 2019; Kuvaas and Dysvik, 2010).…”

“…Urtasun and Núñez (2012) demonstrated that knowledge and autonomy competence substantially impact financial well-being for white-collar employees, while social competence and motivational competence are more relevant for blue-collar employees. Employees later in their careers tend to be less engaged in work and pay less attention to career development (Lee et al , 2014). However, Hosie et al (2013) found that employee satisfaction does not differ significantly as the function of age.…”

“…However, employees with self-volition into a team might perceive the acquisition of required competence and display less value for the desired outcome. The quality of an individual's employment is an essential determinant that moderates the relationship between perceived competence enhancing facilities and well-being (Chambel et al , 2015; Lee et al , 2014). Temporary employees who express higher interest in permanent employment are likely to overvalue their well-being states regardless of the extent of opportunities to enhance competence.…”

“…However, the scenario would be different in organizations that facilitate competence development for external employability. Perceived job insecurity as a contextual factor will signal economic insecurity and therefore, adult employees will become concerned about further education, training and development programmes (Lee et al , 2014). Employees with lifetime employment will expect their employers to facilitate development opportunities, regardless of employment security level (Lee et al , 2014).…”