Social Support for Training Effectiveness: Mediating Training Transfer Motivation and Moderating Transfer Design

Abstract

Organizations invest in training and development to enhance their productivity. But, evidence proved the low effectiveness of the training because of the poor training transfer. Thus, training effectiveness is a permanent issue in developing human competencies and organizational performance. This study examined the effect of social support, that is, supervisor and peer support on training effectiveness, that is, training transfer, training maintenance, and training generalization with the moderated mediation effect of training transfer design and training transfer motivation. This study followed positivist epistemology on cross-section survey data collected from banking employees using multi-stage sampling. Hayes’s approach was used to test hypotheses. The findings of the study revealed a significant positive effect of social support on training effectiveness. Results revealed that peer support is vital in comparison to supervisory support to enhance training effectiveness. Training transfer motivation mediated the effect of peer support and transfer motivation predicting training effectiveness. The study concluded that optimal positive support from peers and supervisors is essential to enhance training effectiveness; the higher training transfer motivation of trainees further supports the relationship. This study emphasizes the significance of workplace factors to increase training transfer effectiveness, providing practical and theoretical implications.