Building leadership competencies through training activities a mediation model with transfer of training

Abstract

In India, post 1991 when liberalization, privatization and globalization happened, the competition among the organization became cut- throat. In this intense competitive scenario, organizations need to be aware of their human resources. They need to keep their human resource constantly up- to-date, so that the employees have advanced skills thereby giving organizations a competitive advantage. Keeping this in mind, the present study, looks into training, transfer of training, and how do these affect the leadership competencies in an organization. A model is proposed for the study which depicts the training activities influence on leadership competencies of employees. For that to happen there has to be transfer of training knowledge for employees, for which transfer of training has been used as mediating variable in the model. Training activities constitutes 3 dimensions namely pre-training activities, during-training activities and post-training activities. The dependent variable, leadership competencies, consists of self-awareness, developing others and building and maintaining relationships. To test the validity of the model, various validity techniques have been used. Construct validity was also checked in the study to ensure validity of measures. Random sampling techniques was used as sampling technique to collect the primary data using a structured questionnaire which was employed across various manufacturing industries in Krishnagiri district of Tamilnadu. Advanced technique like PLS was used to analyze the data. The results reveal a clear picture of the importance of training programs in organizations. It was seen that the training activities like pre-training activities, during-training activities and post-training activities have a significant impact on development of leadership competencies. An analysis was also conducted to look into the mediating effect of transfer of training on the relationship between training activities namely activities preceding training, part of training, those activities foll