Workplace Learning: A Study of Antecedents and Consequences in IT Industry of India

Abstract

Despite the relatively latest emergence of workplace learning as an important trend, and a concern of organisations, organizations consider it as a cost burden. Previously organizations were focusing more on formal training program but gradually organizations started offering additional learning opportunities to their employees than a formal training. Various forms of workplace learning have existed since the beginning of formal and informal work patterns. I have taken organizations as a mini metaphor of the society to identify the workplace learning antecedents and consequences. Generally, people learn from observing others behaviour, attitude and outcomes of others behaviour. At workplace most of the time people learn through observation, imitation, from others, and modelling. For this research, researcher have considered social learning, experiential learning theories and Vroom’s expectancy theory as a base theories to comprehend workplace learning practices. I have conducted this study in Indian Information Technology (IT) sector as in recent times the IT industry is looking forward to advances processes, innovation and product development that necessitate a human resource with specialised knowledge and skills. Workplace learning practices in IT sector help companies as well as employees to improve their performance.Keeping these in mind, the companies are eager to drive for the different learning opportunities for their employees at regular intervals. In today’s times, to remain competitive and to build KSAs in accordance with the changing demands of the customer in the global domain has become a focused initiative, thus a need to study Workplace Learning in Indian IT firms was felt. The study expands the understanding of issues related to workplace learning. Individuals are motivated to learn at workplace as the learning is linked to opportunities and organisational career development paths. Supportive organizational learning climate is crucial to create learning at the workplace. WPL in an organization demands congruent support from all levels of the organisation as well as support of individual.

While reviewing the literature, researcher found that one of the significant gaps in this area that there are very few shared ideas about what constitutes successful workplace learning or successful outcomes from workplace learning beyond some very broad principles. Apart from this, most studies have stopped at the level of defining Workplace Learning as a construct; there are very few studies that have mapped it to outcome variables at the individual or organizational level. Previous research has not explored such integrated model and this study is an initial effort to understand the antecedents, consequences and impact of workplace learning in Indian context. Significance of exploring these is that an employee, who wishes to learn and grow, grabs every available opportunity to learn and upgrade their KSAs.

The study has been executed based upon the data collected on the group of 513 employees of the large cap companies (refers to a company with a market capitalization value of more than $10 billion.) A questionnaire-based survey was conducted across multiple locations (Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Delhi) and multiple organisations. The survey instrument was adopted from existing standardised scales. The survey was administered to IT professionals of Major IT giants. A total of 1500 questionnaires were distributed. We got 561 filled responses, of which 513 were found usable for final analysis.

Integrated model of Antecedent and Consequences was tested using regression analysis and subsequently, the mediating effects were tested using the Sobel test.

For this research, the researcher is trying to comprehend the impact of Workplace Learning as a mediator with Motivation to Learn and Organizational Learning Climate, and how that will affect an employee’s job satisfaction and job performance. Workplace Learning has been found to not only develop employees and improve their skills and abilities but also improve job performance and enhance their satisfaction. Workplace learning plays a pivotal role in explaining the strength and direction of the relationship between employees’ motivation to learn, organisational learning climate, and has its outcomes like job performance and job satisfaction. It explains that under which circumstances, certain event would occur along with its state of effectiveness. Findings from this study depict how workplace learning helps to increase employee performance. Workplace Learning is not just an activity: it’s a social process that is vital of increasing human capital of the organization. As the study shows, learned employees perform well in the organization and it helps organizations to achieve their organizational goals.