The Analysis of The Effect of Individual Characteristics and Supervisor Support on Motivation and Learning Transfer

Abstract

The purpose of this study is: (1) To determine and analyze the effect of  individual characteristics on employee’s motivation to transfer: (2) To determine and analyze the effect of individual characteristics on learning transfer; (3) To determine and analyze the effect of supervisor support on employee’s motivation to transfer; (4) To determine and analyze the effect of supervisor support on learning transfer; (5) To determine and analyze the effect of motivation to transfer on learning transfer. This type of study is explanatory research while collecting primary data through questionnaires distribution to 185 employees and 81 immediate superior in a tuna processing company in Indonesia who have attended a Leadership Development Program, a soft skills training, done in February 2013 to July 2014. Sampling technique used is stratified sampling method. In this study there are two independent variables analyzed: individual characteristics and suppervisor support; an intervening variable: motivation to transfer;  and the dependent variable: learning transfer.The collected data analyzed by using PLS (Partial Least Square). The results obtained are (1) Individual characteristics has significant effect on employee’s motivation to transfer; (2) Individual characteristics has significant effect on learning transfer; (3) Supervisor support has significant effect on the employee’s motivation to transfer, (4) Supervisor support has significant effect on learning transfer, (5) Employee’s motivation to transfer has significant effect on learning transfer. From the focus group discussion it can be suggested that the management should establish a tool to measure and evaluate the learning transfer of a soft-skills training in order to better capture the success of a training transfer. The management should also integrate the training program to the personnel system, for example using the training record for determining the promotion and / or the bonuses distribution, etc.