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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 40 (2012) 565 – 570

The 2012 International Conference on Asia Pacific Business Innovation &

Technology Management

Organizational Factors in Learning and Development

Initiatives
Abu Mansor, N.N.a, Saidi, M.I.b, Mohamed, A.c,Idris, N.d

a
Senior Lecturer, Department of HRD, 81310 Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia a
b
Phd Candidate, Department of HRD, 81310 Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
c
Vice President Business Development, Danga Bay, Malaysia, Iskandar Development Management Services
a
Senior Lecturer, Department of HRD, 81310 Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Abstract

This article examines organizational (government policies, line management involvement, top management support,
outsourcing and external consultant) factors of learning and development (L&D) influencing effective
implementation of L&D. It employs a quantitative approach using self-administered survey questionnaire
administered to 103 employees in a large Malaysian owned bank. Descriptive analyses revealed line managers’
involvement strongly agreed by respondents in influencing effective implementation of L&D initiatives.

© 2012
© 2011Published
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Ltd. Selection
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and/or peer-review
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Asia Asia Pacific
Business Innovation and Technology Management Society
Business Innovation and Technology Management Society (APBITM).”
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

Keywords: Organizational factors; learning and development inititatives, line managers involvement, banking sector

1. Introduction

With the increase of awareness regarding learning and development (L&D) initiatives among
organizations throughout the world especially in Malaysia, determining the best L&D initiatives, methods
or practices can be quite a challenge. These organizations are not aware of their own strengths and
weaknesses in terms of deploying L&D initiatives [1]. They are not exposed to the best practices in L&D
and benchmarking in practicing effective implementation of L&D initiatives [2]. This situation will lead
to ineffectiveness in implementation of the L&D initiatives itself. Recently, Malaysian government
played an important role in encouraging private and even public employees in developing effective L&D
initiatives. Since the 10th Malaysian Plan was introduced, Malaysia has pledged to invest up to RM 500
million for employees to upgrade their skills through training [3]. In ensuring proper budget utilization,
effective L&D initiatives must be identified as soon as possible. This budget provides excellent
opportunities in encouraging employees in Malaysia to develop and upgrade their skills, knowledge and
abilities. According to [3], First Strategic Trust in the 10th Malaysia Plan consists of improving efforts
for human capital in various sectors and this has opened up big opportunities for these workers to

1877-0428 © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Asia Pacific Business Innovation and Technology
Management Society Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.03.231
566 Abu Mansor et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 40 (2012) 565 – 570

continually learn and develop themselves. Together with introduction of Malaysian Government
Transformation Plan, Malaysia has a high potential in developing its own human capital [3][4].
The main aim of this article is to identify what are the perceptions of bankers in relation to
organizational factors which can lead to effective implementation of L&D initiatives. The methodology
involved quantitative research using descriptive (non-experimental) and a survey containing a self-
administered questionnaire involving 60 items [5].The questionnaires were distributed via a face-to-face
survey to 103 employees in 10 ABC Bank branches in Johor Bahru.

2. Literature Review

2.1. The Learning Organization Strategy Model

This article adopts the learning organization strategy model which takes individuals, team,
organization as well as the society into consideration. This fundamental theory encourages the
involvement and interaction between society, organization, team and individuals in order to move
vigorously in ensuring continuous learning takes place in the organization [6, 27]. This assists employees
to change and improve their attitude and behaviour towards higher performance outcomes through L&D
initiatives. Furthermore, [7] pointed out that the seven dimensions are important in understanding how
organizations deploy L&D for their employees. The first dimension, continuous learning refers to the
organization’s effort in creating continuous learning opportunities for all of its workers. The second
dimension, inquiry and dialogue, represents the organization’s effort in creating a culture of questioning,
feedback and experimentation. The team learning considers spirit to unite in solving the issues arising in
the organization. The fourth dimension, empowerment, requires the organization to create a shared vision
among employees and leaders. This dimension is similar to The Fifth Discipline [8] that is shared vision.
Next, embedded system indicates organization efforts to enable established employees to capture and
share learning processes. The sixth dimension involves connecting the organization to its external and
internal environment. The last dimension that is strategic leadership requires organizations to show
leaders’ abilities to think strategically on how to manipulate L&D to change and move the organization
towards new directions or new markets.

2.2. Organizational Factors

This article identified five organisational factors influencing effective implementation of L&D
initiatives which are government policies, line managers’ involvement, top management commitment,
outsourcing, and external consultant.
The first factor discussed is government policies. For countries like Malaysia, government policies can
be one of the main reasons that encourage the execution of learning and development methods.
Furthermore, [9] stated National Vision Policy (NVP) had clearly showed government’s efforts in
developing a knowledge-based economy through knowledgeable workers. Another huge step taken by the
government in promoting L&D is through implementation of Human Resources Act in 1992 which
required each company to contribute one percent of their monthly salary to the Human Resources
Development Fund [10]. This fund is responsible in providing effective training to each of their members.
The literature review provides some basic ideas on how Malaysia has seriously considered L&D as one of
the ways in tackling human resources in the future economy. Furthermore, governments in Western
countries are also looking at L&D initiatives as one of the efforts in developing human capital.
Next, roles of line managers have gradually evolved over the past few years. It involves delegation of
L&D functions and people management to line managers. [5] revealed an increase of training provided to
line managers in order to guide them in making decisions regarding the HRD function. Line management
is perceived as one of the main movers for encouraging their subordinates to continuously develop
 Abu Mansor et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 40 (2012) 565 – 570 567

themselves. [11] informed employee commitment in implementation of L&D initiatives will be increase
with support and encouragement form line managers.
In executing any initiatives, top management commitment is perceived as one of the critical success
factors in ensuring the effectiveness of these initiatives. According to [12], top management commitment
is associated with top management efforts in giving direction, authority and also resources in executing
L&D initiatives. In this case, top management personnel are viewed as a provider as well as supporter for
implementation of any initiatives.
Furthermore, outsourcing also is one of the factors which lead to effective L&D initiatives. According
to [13], Yankee Group had reported that 48% key decision makers agreed that HR business process
outsourcing benefitted them in terms of return on investment (ROI) as they expected, especially in
increasing effectiveness of L&D initiatives. The advantages of using this factor as a mean of
implementing L&D initiatives are cost reduction, maximizing resources, service improvements and
freeing up in-house employees so they have more time to focus on other HR issues.
Moreover, external consultants can also be categorized as one of the factors influencing employing
effective L&D. This factor is important in ensuring appropriate L&D activities can be a successful
intervention. According to [14], interaction between members of the organization and external agents
such as management consultants may be an important means through which an organization learns. In
other word, external consultant can be one of the factors influence effectiveness of L&D implementation
since they would bring in their expertise in L&D and culture of learning to client organizations.

3. Findings and Discussions

The organizational factors were analyzed using descriptive analyses (mean). Below are the results:

3.1. Organizational Factors

In the descriptive analysis of government policies, the highest activity which respondents mostly
responded to is “willingness to follow government policies” with a mean of 4.05 (SD = 0.62). Meanwhile,
item “government polices encourage you to learn and develop yourself” had received the lowest mean
which is 3.74 (SD = 0.67). Overall mean for government policies factor is 3.83 which indicated that
respondents “agree” with this factor items. Overall mean for government policies factor is 3.83 which
indicated that respondents “agree” with this factor items. Most researches [9][10][15] in Malaysia
explained about government policies in influencing L&D in Malaysia and provide some evidence on how
these policies impact Malaysian workers in terms of effective implementation of L&D. The respondents
might think that since they are in private banking sector, government policies are not applicable to them
even though they agreed but with lower score of average mean than other factors.
In relation to line managers responsibility (refer to table 1), the highest mean for this section is item
“ability to talk to branch manager” with a mean of 4.49 (SD = 0.59). In the other hand, item “your branch
managers always send you to L&D programmes” received the lowest mean which is 3.79 (SD =0 .46).
Overall mean for line managers’ involvement factor is 4.25 which indicated that respondents “agree” with
this factor items. The highest average mean score indicated line managers’ involvement or branch
managers for banking sectors are the most influential organizational factors in determining the L&D
initiatives. [5] also mentioned regarding importance of the line managers responsibility in today’s world.
New role of line managers which is totally different from traditional role of line mangers involved various
HRD functions especially in implementing effective L&D initiatives [16] [17]. From this survey, it is
proven that employees in ABC Bank perceived line managers or branch managers as the most suitable
person responsible for determining L&D initiatives implementation consistent with literature review. [11]
clearly stated line managers’ support would automatically increase employee commitment to
implementing L&D initiatives. Furthermore, [18] also pointed the emergence of line managers’ role in
568 Abu Mansor et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 40 (2012) 565 – 570

managing their subordinates’ L&D initiatives which directly involved in most of human resource
management activities.

Table 1. Descriptive analysis of line managers’ involvement

Standard
Item Construct Mean
Deviation
Line Managers’ Involvement 4.25 0.34

C14 Your branch managers always send you to L&D programmes. 3.79 0.46
C15 Your branch managers always discuss about ways to improve your work. 4.40 0.58
C16 You are able to talk formally or informally to your branch manager regarding your work 4.49 0.59
and learning process.
C17 You are comfortable with your branch manager. 4.39 0.49
C18 After each L&D programmes, your branch managers ask you to evaluate the overall 4.18 0.39
programmes.

For top management commitment of L&D factors, most respondents ticked item “top management
always provides relevant programmes to all of their staff” with a mean of 4.09 (SD = 0.51).Meanwhile,
item “it is easy to discuss about L&D programmes with top management” had received the lowest mean
which is 3.70 (SD = 0.52). Overall mean for top management commitment factor is 3.96 which indicated
that respondents “agree” with this factor items. This study proved importance of top management’s
commitment in implementing L&D initiatives in a banking sector especially in ABC Bank. These
findings supported previous study by [19] which were performed on 700 project managers and their
supervisors in seven industries in Japan, Israel, and New Zealand. Furthermore, top management
personnel are viewed as a provider as well as supporter for implementation of any initiatives including
L&D initiatives [12] [19] [20][21].
As for outsourcing factor, the highest mean score is 4.00 for item “outsourcing can reduce your
workload especially in choosing effective initiatives”. The other items have mean scores close to 4 with
the lowest, item “through outsourcing, you are able to gain as much knowledge as you want” which is
3.61 (SD = 0.83). Overall mean for outsourcing factor is 3.83 which indicated that respondents “agree”
with this factor items. Findings indicated outsourcing as one of important factors to consider when
executing L&D initiatives effectively. The respondents are aware that outsourcing will help give
maximum impact in implementing L&D initiatives by importing outside culture which can be beneficial
to the ABC Bank. Outsourcing is the right alternative for managers to speed up their HR processes
especially in implementing L&D initiatives by letting professionals to do it [13][22][23][24][25].
External consultant of L&D factors stated highest mean for item “learning from experts make you
perform better” with a score mean of 4.21 (SD = 0.50). With score only 3.74 (SD = 0.61), item “external
consultants provided you with effective L&D programmes in your organization” has the lowest mean
among others. Overall mean for external consultant factor is 4.00 which indicated that respondents
“agree” with this factor items. This is because the respondents agreed that bringing in external consultants
to the organization will make a big impact in influencing the effectiveness of L&D initiatives which is
consistent with past literature review. External consultants are specifically trained and qualified personal
in the organization which responsible in guiding and making recommendations for improving the
effectiveness of L&D initiatives [26]. In addition, [14] also mentioned how external consultants can
continuously encourage them to improve even better.
 Abu Mansor et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 40 (2012) 565 – 570 569

4. Conclusion

Globalization enforces today’s organization to look at L&D as one of their main agenda especially for
employees’ continuous professional development. From this article, employees themselves mostly agreed
to all organizational factors such as government policies, line manager’s involvement, top management
commitment, outsourcing and external consultant. Line managers’ involvement is seen as the most
agreeable factor influencing the implementation of effective L&D initiatives in ABC Bank.

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