'Managers' personal values as predictors of importance attached to training and development : a cross-country exploratory study

Abstract

Few empirical studies have examined the effect of personal values on the importance attached by individuals to training and development in organizations. We argue that personal values play an important role in decision-making processes (i.e. commitment to training and development) and that such values are the product of socialisation processes operating at an organisational and societal level. Questionnaire data was collected from 340 Irish and Canadian line managers to test the hypothesis that personal values affect the importance attached by respondents to training and development. Capability values were found to be a significant positive predictor of the perceived importance of training and development. The findings emphasise the need for simultaneously examining both personal values and organisational factors as predictors of training and development activity.