Work Environment and Training Transfer Intentions: Does Organizational Justice Moderate Their Relationship?

Muhammad Sarfraz,Faiza Rehman,Shah Rollah Bin Abdul Wahab,Muhammad Salihuddin,Zahid Hussain,Nausheen Syed

doi:10.1177/21582440211046941

Abstract

The work environment plays a vital role in the transfer of the newly attained knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) at the workplace. In the past decades, a series of studies have investigated the direct relationship between the work environment and training transfer. Surprisingly, empirical findings noted the inconsistent relationship between the work environment and training transfer. Whereas, the moderating effect between these relationships has been less examined in the training transfer literature. Therefore, addressing this gap, the prospective study was designed to investigate the moderating role of organizational justice as a potential moderator between the relationships of work environment and training transfer in Pakistani large-scale textile organizations (LSTO). Survey data were collected from 336 front-line managers by employing a multi-stage sampling technique. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression technique were used to test the hypotheses. The results showed that supervisor support, peer support, and opportunity to use learning (i.e., dimensions of work environment) correlate positively with training transfer. The findings also confirmed the moderating role of procedural justice and distributive justice (i.e., dimensions of organization justice) between the relationship of work environment and training transfer. These results underscore the critical role played by organizational justice to enhance the transfer of training at the workplace. This study shows, for the first time, that how organizational justice is an important mechanism to stimulate the work environment to training transfer.

Highlights

In today’s era of professional milieus, where organizations are in confront of rapid technological changes, where innovation is happening every day, where social and economic uncertainty is prevailing, sustaining the competitive advantage has become necessary for every organization (Banerjee et al, 2017; Sarfraz et al, 2020)
Though, training transfer literature confirmed the importance of these factors in training transfer, while we focus on work environment because the prior literature confirmed its significance than other factors (Blume et al, 2010; Chauhan et al, 2016; Homklin et al, 2014)
The current study aimed to determine the possible relationship of supervisor support, peer support, and opportunity to use learning with training transfer in large-scale textile organizations in Pakistan

Summary

Introduction

In today’s era of professional milieus, where organizations are in confront of rapid technological changes, where innovation is happening every day, where social and economic uncertainty is prevailing, sustaining the competitive advantage has become necessary for every organization (Banerjee et al, 2017; Sarfraz et al, 2020). Training is an important strategy of the organizations (Massenberg et al, 2017) and a key function of the human resources practices (Alvelos et al, 2015) that helps the organizations to mitigate the effect of these changes that occur inside the organization at a different level. Training is one of the most effective practices that help organizations to gain a competitive edge (Sarfraz et al, 2020; Storberg-Walker, 2005) and enhance performance and productivity at the individual and organizational levels (Arthur et al, 2003).

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Discussion

Conclusion