Enhancing training motivation in the public sector in South Korea: the value of a contingency approach

Abstract

Public sector organisations which invest in training programmes care about their employees’ successful application of learnt knowledge and skills in the workplace. The present study finds that leader support positively influences public sector employees’ training motivation, specifically the motivation to transfer learnt knowledge and skills to their jobs. However, this positive relationship is moderated by employees’ prior knowledge of training content. When employees have high levels of prior knowledge of training content, leader support is not a significant influence on their motivation to transfer learnt knowledge and skills to their jobs. These findings are derived from a survey of 335 South Korean government officials who recently participated in a training programme that focused on performance management systems. The findings suggest that leaders need to take a contingent approach when expressing support for training programmes.

Keywords:

• training motivation
• motivation to transfer
• contingent leadership
• prior knowledge
• employee training
• South Korea

Notes

1. From the questionnaire, all items except for five items showed a response rate higher than 98%. The five items were about employees’ objection against PMS, which showed 49.9% response rate. Given the hierarchical organisational culture within Korean government agencies, this low response is not surprising. Although none of these objection-related items were statistically significant in any models, it was decided to keep them in the analysis since their inclusion resulted in a slightly better model fit. In addition, there was no systematic difference in key variables between employees who answered the five questions and those who did not. All key variables show the same pattern regardless of keeping them in our models. Full results for models without objection-related items are available from the authors on request.