The moderating effect of coworkers’ training participation on the influence of peer support in the transfer process

Purpose The impact of the number of coworkers participating in training on transfer outcomes has largely been overlooked. This paper aims to examine whether the number of coworkers participating in training interacts with peer support (PS) to influence training motivation and transfer. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected using a cross-sectional survey from a sample of 688 employees working in 14 midsize and large companies. All participants were recent trainees in various open skill (e.g. leadership) training programs. Moderated mediation was used to test the hypotheses. Findings Motivation to transfer (MTT) mediated the relationship between PS and perceived training transfer. When more coworkers participated in the training, PS had a stronger influence on trainee MTT. Practical implications Organizations should consider training coworker cohorts at the same time to influence MTT and training transfer. Generally, whole-team training programs could be used to boost training transfer outcomes, although it could potentially have a negative impact on transfer if PS is low. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this was the first study to demonstrate that the number of coworkers participating in training can moderate the effect of PS on MTT and training transfer.

Motivation to transfer soft skills training: a systematic literature review

Purpose This paper aims to synthesize existing knowledge on trainee motivation to transfer (MTT) soft skills training through a systematic literature review (SLR). Design/methodology/approach By applying a rigorous reproducible process, this SLR identified a total of 33 peer-reviewed articles on MTT in soft skills training. Findings The systematic review offers several important findings. First, research on MTT has accelerated in the recent past with studies conducted in varied geographic contexts. Second, MTT has been operationalized and measured as an antecedent and mediator of training transfer as well as an outcome itself is sampled papers. Third, MTT is recognized as critical in facilitating the transfer of soft skills. Finally, an investigation of empirical studies helped locate gaps in research methodologies, measurement of MTT and finally its predictors. Research limitations/implications The study is limited by the search string and its choice of peer-reviewed articles published in the English language only. Originality/value In the absence of systematic reviews on MTT in the context of soft skill, the study contributes immensely by providing an updated, cogent summarization of extant work and potential directions for future research/practice.

Investigating the motivational antecedents of training transfer at the post-implementation phase of enterprise systems

Purpose Despite recognising the importance of training on the successful implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, there is a shortage of research on mechanisms that facilitate the effective use of ERP implementation training in business environments. This study aims to investigate the factors influencing post-implementation transfer behaviours as a measure of training effectiveness among ERP users. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual model based on related theories was developed to explain the effectiveness of post-implementation ERP training. The study analysed collected data from ERP users drawn from finance, customer relationship management, marketing, sales and logistics units in some organisations in New Zealand. Findings Findings reveal that 42.7% of the variance in ERP training transfer (TT) can be explained by mastery goal orientation (MGO), computer self-efficacy (CSE) and transfer motivation (TMO). Furthermore, CSE and TMO acted as vital mechanisms by which MGO affects the TT. Research limitations/implications Future studies are implored to address the limitation of cross-sectional research design by using more objective measures and multiple data sources. Practical implications Understanding the underlying mechanisms of training effectiveness at the post-implementation phase can facilitate the development of strategic interventions to sustain effective transfer behaviours in ERP task environments. Originality/value Building on the self-determination theory, this study demonstrates the interrelationship among MGO, CSE, TMO and TT at the post-implementation phase of ERP.

NIMG-26. IMPROVING THE GENERALIZABILITY OF DEEP LEARNING FOR T2-LESION SEGMENTATION OF GLIOMAS IN THE POST-TREATMENT SETTING

Although current advances for automated glioma lesion segmentation and volumetric measurements using deep learning have yielded high performance on newly-diagnosed patients, response assessment in neuro-oncology still relies on manually-drawn, cross-sectional areas of the tumor because these models do not generalize to patients in the post-treatment setting, where they are most needed in the clinic. Surgical resections, adjuvant treatment, or disease progression can alter the characteristics of these lesions on T2-weighted imaging, causing measures of segmentation accuracy, typically measured by Dice coefficients of overlap (DCs), to drop by ~15%. To improve the generalizability of T2-lesion segmentation to patients with glioma post-treatment, we evaluated the effects of: 1) training with different proportions of newly-diagnosed and treated gliomas, 2) applying transfer learning from pre- to post-treatment domains, and 3) incorporating a loss term that spatially weights the lesion boundaries with greater emphasis in training. Using 425 patients (208 newly-diagnosed, 217 post-Tx, with 25 treated patients withheld as a test set) and a top-performing model previously trained on newly-diagnosed gliomas, we found that DCs increased by 10% (to 0.84) then plateaued after including ~25% of post-treatment patients in training. Transfer learning (pre-training on newly-diagnosed and finetuning with post-treatment data) significantly improved Hausdorf distances (HDs), a measure more sensitive to changes at the lesion boundaries, by 17% after including 26% post-treatment images in training, while DCs remained similar. Although modifying our loss functions with boundary-weighted penalizations resulted in comparable DCs to using standard DC loss, HD measures were further reduced by 26%, suggesting that HDs may be a more sensitive metric to subtle changes in segmentation accuracy than DCs. Current work is evaluating their utility in providing accurate volumes for real-time response assessment in the clinic using workflows that have recently been deployed on our clinical PACs system.

Work Environment and Training Transfer Intentions: Does Organizational Justice Moderate Their Relationship?

The work environment plays a vital role in the transfer of the newly attained knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) at the workplace. In the past decades, a series of studies have investigated the direct relationship between the work environment and training transfer. Surprisingly, empirical findings noted the inconsistent relationship between the work environment and training transfer. Whereas, the moderating effect between these relationships has been less examined in the training transfer literature. Therefore, addressing this gap, the prospective study was designed to investigate the moderating role of organizational justice as a potential moderator between the relationships of work environment and training transfer in Pakistani large-scale textile organizations (LSTO). Survey data were collected from 336 front-line managers by employing a multi-stage sampling technique. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression technique were used to test the hypotheses. The results showed that supervisor support, peer support, and opportunity to use learning (i.e., dimensions of work environment) correlate positively with training transfer. The findings also confirmed the moderating role of procedural justice and distributive justice (i.e., dimensions of organization justice) between the relationship of work environment and training transfer. These results underscore the critical role played by organizational justice to enhance the transfer of training at the workplace. This study shows, for the first time, that how organizational justice is an important mechanism to stimulate the work environment to training transfer.

The well-fit for the FET model: Understanding training transfer factors in Spain

Learning transfer evaluation is a necessary process for practitioners to assess the effectiveness of training, and the outcomes of training produces in workers’ behaviors. In this paper, we explore an alternative way to evaluate transfer: through the study of transfer facilitators and barriers. Our aim is to validate the Factors to Evaluate Transfer (FET) model in a large sample of Spanish employees using confirmatory factor analysis. We applied the Spanish version of the FET scale to a sample of 2,745 Spanish workers of public service institutions and private companies. The results show a seven-factor model as the best choice according to the adjustment indices presented in the paper. We obtained a shorter version of the instrument, with adequate construct validity as well as good reliability and internal consistency. This model is a step forward in the measurement of indirect transfer and allows keeping working on the FET model to diagnosis transfer factors and increase the probabilities of higher learning transfer levels.