Supervisor’s Role as an Antecedent of Training Transfer and Motivation to Learn in Training Programs

Training and development program literature highlights two major characteristics of supervisor’s role: support and communication. The ability of supervisors to provide adequate support and practice good communication style in relation to training programs may lead to increased training transfer and motivation to learn. Though the nature of this relationship is significant, little is known about the predictive properties of supervisor’s roles in training program literatures. Therefore, this study was conducted to measure the effect of supervisor’s role on training transfer and motivation to learn using 110 usable questionnaires gathered from employees who have attended training programs in a state public work agency in East Malaysia, Malaysia. The results of exploratory factor analysis confirmed that the measurement scales used in this study satisfactorily met the acceptable standards of validity and reliability analyses. Further, the outcomes of stepwise regression analysis showed four important findings: first, support insignificantly correlated with motivation to learn. Second, communication significantly correlated with motivation to learn. Third, support significantly correlated with transfer of training. Finally, communication significantly correlated with transfer of learning. Statistically, this result confirms that support is an important antecedent of motivation to learn and communication is an important antecedent of motivation to learn. Conversely, support and communication are important antecedents of training transfer in the studied organization. In addition, discussion, implications and conclusion are elaborated.