Training and business performance: the Spanish case

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between training policies and business performance. Our research seeks to enlarge the empirical bibliography about the impact training has on firms and tries to challenge the criticism previous works with similar characteristics received. With this purpose in mind, we have used a theoretical model based on the hypothesis of a ‘cascade-type relationship’ between four types of organizational performance. The results obtained from a sample of Spanish firms show that training policy (based on the human capital theory and the resource-based theory) has a significant impact on firm performance.

Keywords:

• Training
• human capital
• results (performance)

Notes

1 The origins of this theory are found in the Business Growth Theory proposed by Penrose (1959).

2 Other authors advocating the use of intermediate results are: Guest (1997); Delbridge and Lowe (1997), Murray and Gerhart (1998), and Ulrich (1989).

3 The sampling error for p = q = 0.5 is of 10.23 per cent.

4 This study is part of another larger research work. The specific questions related to training policy appear in Appendix 1. Furthermore, these variables are to do with the training process in the firm because we think this is a criterion that takes into account the quality and not only the quantity of training provided, and with other authors (e.g. Sels, 2002), we do not always believe that ‘more is better’.

5 Factor analysis results are given in Appendix 2.