Impact of the transfer climate on the transfer of training: moderating role of job satisfaction and job engagement

This paper presents first results of a study that examines the impact of the workplace climate on workplace training effectiveness. Here training effectiveness is conceptualised in terms of transfer of training and the workplace climate is specified in terms of transfer climate. According to the theoretical framework by Carr, Schmidt, Ford and DeShon (2003), we hypothesise that the impact of the transfer climate on the transfer of training will be moderated and/or mediated by cognitive and affective states. Statistical analyses will be conducted to check the hypothesised mediating and moderating role of job satisfaction (affective state) and job engagement (cognitive state) between the transfer climate and the transfer of the newly acquired knowledge. Transfer climate has been broadly studied for its direct impact on transfer of training. The major issue of this study is to examine the interaction of the transfer climate with other variables

In a longitudinal quantitative study, data are collected at the Belgian Sickness Fund. Participants are employees who took part to a training session between March and December 2010 (N=680). Right after the conclusion of the training program, each trainee is invited to fill the Learning transfer System Inventory (Holton, Bates, & Ruona, 2000), a scale measuring 16 dimensions of the transfer climate. One month later, participants are asked to fill a second questionnaire about their perception of the transfer (general and specific performance), job satisfaction (Price, 1977) and job engagement (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003).