This chapter presents the conclusions, implications, limitations and future research suggestions of this study based on the research findings for this study.
Research Conclusions
The goal of this study was to examine the relationships between training and development, organizational commitment and turnover intention among service and manufacturing industry employees in Taiwan. For the 277 representative sample of the population, the results of the research show that it is possible to increase organizational commitment and lower the turnover intention rates using training and development activities.
The results comply with previous research of Bartlett (2001), Ahmad and Bakar (2003), Chung and McLean (2013), Khawaja et al. (2013), Lew (2011) and Newman et al. (2011) that concluded that perceived training plays a role in the development and maintenance of organizational commitment. The study also indicated that there is a negative link between organizational commitment and turnover intentions that is in accordance with previous research of Joo and Park (2010), Yamazaki and Petchdee (2015), Martin and Roodt (2008), Tett and Meyer (1993), Murray et al. (2006) and Newman et al. (2011). In addition, training and development activities increase organizational commitment which leads to decrease of turnover intention as it is evident in the previous studies (Newman et al., 2011; Rahman &
Nas, 2013).
According to the proposed research questions, this study concluded that it is possible to increase organizational commitment of employees by using training and development activities. It also indicated that organizational commitment influences turnover intentions.
The relationship between those two variables is negative, meaning that high organizational commitment would result in low turnover intention and vice versa. It is also evident that the training and development activities can reduce turnover intention of the employees.
In addition, the research showed that on average the employees have quite high levels of affective commitment but the values of normative and continuance commitment are below average. It means that the majority of the employees stay because they are emotionally attached to the organization and not because they would have lack of alternatives or would have the sense of obligation to stay in the organization. It is good information for companies of service and manufacturing industries in Taiwan because it is very important to have loyal
and committed workforce. The research also indicated that continuance and normative commitment have quite low scores. Additional research should be conducted in order to accurately determine the causes of the low values of these two sub-dimensions of organizational commitment.
The research showed that the employees have high levels of the training motivation, perceived availability and perceived benefits of training and well as they receive support from managers to attend training activities, but in the same time the support from the colleagues is below average. It could signal that in many of the organizations there are inter-work conflicts and the HR managers should work on workplace environment. The values of this sub-dimension could be also explained with the company culture or focus on individualism versus collectivism. In order to have more precise answer on this issue, an additional study should be conducted.
The previous research on the variables of training and development, organizational commitment and turnover intention mostly focuses on Western countries. As it was already mentioned before, the research on these variables in Asian context is limited. The research was done in companies in Taiwan and it was exploring the relationship among the training and development, organizational commitment and turnover intention in service and manufacturing companies. The results of this research did not find differences between the previous researches done in Western countries and in Taiwan.
Last but not least, the participants of the study had low scores of the turnover intention.
It is a beneficial information for the companies because the turnover has many negative effects on the business. The low turnover intention was also evident by high scores of affective commitment and results of the descriptive statistics that indicated that the majority of the participants have been working for their company for 6 or more years.
To conclude, the research has proven that the training and development activities has negative effect on turnover intentions and has positive effect on organizational commitment.
In addition, according to the demographic analysis, employees in Taiwan in general have high affective commitment scores to their organizations, they see training activities as beneficial, available, supported from managers and they have high motivation to attend them, as well as the employees in general have low turnover intentions.
Practical Implications
The research contributes to the acknowledgment of the importance of training and
impact on employees and on the company. Generally, every organization wants to have committed long-term employees. The present study has proven that training and development activities positively contribute to the organizational commitment levels and are negatively associated with turnover intention. The positive relationship between training and development and organizational commitment and the negative relationship with turnover intention can be useful for any HR professional and company. In case if there are unsatisfactory levels of organizational commitment or turnover, HR professionals can use training as one of the possible activities for improving the low levels of commitment and retention.
The information about how to increase commitment and reduce turnover can be useful for foreign companies opening their branches in Taiwan as it gives information about workforce specifics in Asian context and Taiwan. As it was already mentioned before, the research on the relationships among training and development, organizational commitment and turnover intention mostly focuses on Western countries therefore this study can be of benefit to companies in Taiwan as human resources are crucial part of organizational success and it is important to know how to increase organizational commitment and retention rates.
The information can be used by training specialists as a proof that training and development activities are beneficial to the companies. It is quite hard to measure the benefits of the training as the effects of it sometimes are not obvious or takes longer time to archive the desired result. The research showed that employees are motivated to attend the training activities, they see it as a beneficial activity and, according to the results obtained by this study, due to the fact that training and development activities result in increase of organizational commitment and therefore decrease in turnover intention, it is beneficial to companies as well. Knowing this information, the training and development specialists can persuade the management about the need of implementing the training and development activities.
The data from this research can be used by manufacturing and service industry companies to see whether there are any issues that need improvement. The analysis of this research showed that the normative commitment and continuance commitment values are below average. The companies from the previously mentioned industries could use this information for planning necessary activities to increase normative commitment and continuance commitment rates. The descriptive analysis also showed that co-worker support for the training is low, therefore HR personnel could implement steps to increase levels of co-workers’ support.
To conclude, based on the findings of the study, it is suggested that companies implement training and development activities in the workplace as it would result in beneficial outcomes for the employees and for the organization.
Recommendations for Future Research
The descriptive analysis showed that some of the sub-dimensions of organizational commitment and training and development had below-average mean scores. As it was already mentioned before, the employees from service and manufacturing industries had low normative commitment and continuance commitment scores. The low scores of normative and continuance commitment are interesting because the other sub-dimension of the organizational commitment (affective commitment) had very high values. In addition, according to the previous studies, organizational commitment and turnover intention has negative relationship. In the present research, despite the low levels of the continuance and normative commitments, the turnover intention rates were still low. In order to find out the causes of the low results, in-depth interviews could be utilized and the correlation and hierarchical regression analysis could be performed between sub-dimensions of training and development and those two sub-dimensions of organizational commitment. The additional SPSS analysis could help to see which training and development sub-dimensions can affect continuance commitment and normative commitment.
The research also has shown that the support from co-workers is very low. The finding of low values of the co-worker support was unexpected as all the other sub-dimensions of the variable of training and motivation had very high scores. Moreover, the SPSS analysis showed that the support from managers is high but in the same time the support for the training and development activities from colleagues is very low. It would be beneficial to research the causes of the low results, and in order to get more precise data about the low results, a qualitative research is suggested.
In order to analyze relationships among training and development, organizational commitment and turnover intention in more depth and to obtain more complete data, qualitative research would be recommended. The future research could utilize in-depth interviews with the employees from service and manufacturing fields. This would give more broad information on the workforce in those industries in Taiwan and it could provide more detailed information on this topic, e.g., the interviews could point out if there is anything that is missing in the survey questionnaire.
Due to the reason that Taiwan is promoting itself as a place for international business and more and more expats are choosing Taiwan for their careers, the future research could compare if the foreign and local employees have the same results. This research did not employ demographic variable on nationality but it would be both useful and informative to explore if nationality has any effect on the relationship between training and development, organizational commitment and turnover intention.
In order to give more specific suggestions for the companies, the research could be narrowed down to a specific workplace in service or manufacturing industries. Narrowing down the scope of the study could help to deliver more specific suggestions to the companies.
Due to the fact that the research focused on service and manufacturing industries, the comparative analysis could be done if there are any differences between the answers of the people employed in service industry and people employed in manufacturing industry.
The finding of this research were in accordance with previous researches. The study was limited only to service and manufacturing industries and the present research showed similar results with the previous studies conducted in Western settings. It would be beneficial to compare if the results would be consistent with previous researches done in Western countries in different industries in Taiwan.
The future research on these variables could be more detailed and explore the relationships among the sub-dimensions of training and development and organizational commitment with turnover intention. This would give more broad view in this issue and could provide more detailed picture on the relationship among those concepts. Analysis of sub-dimensions of the variables could help to examine on which training and development sub-dimensions the organization should focus more in order to increase organization commitment.
The future research could analyze if there are any differences among the answers of demographic groups. The present research used the demographic data only to describe the sample population. More detailed analysis of the demographic groups could help training professionals and HR to see if the training activities should be adjusted for different demographic groups, for example, the future research could examine if the results are the same for male and female employees, or if employees with different education levels have any differences in their answers. This information could be used by training and development specialists for designing trainings.
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APPENDIX A: RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE (PAPER)
Relationships Among Training and Development, Organizational Commitment and Turnover Intention in Companies in Taiwan
Hello! My name is Ilze Zepa and I am a graduate student in International Human Resource Development at National Taiwan Normal University.
I'm conducting a study concerning manufacturing and service industry employees and their experiences to partially fulfill my requirement for my graduate program.
I invite you, to be a part of this study, and know that your participation is kept anonymous. Please answer as honestly and carefully as possible.
All employees currently employed in Taiwan are welcome to participate. Your contribution to the study is very important.
The survey will only take about 10 minutes to complete. If there are any questions regarding this survey, feel free to contact me at ilze.zepaa@gmail.com. All feedback is welcomed.
Thank you for participating.
您好，我是 Ilze Zepa，目前就讀於國立臺灣師範大學國際人力資源發展所碩士班。
為了協助探究公司員工訓練發展、組織承諾和留任傾向的關係，特別邀請您撥冗參與這份問卷 的作答。基於個人隱私的保護原則，此調查不需要填寫您個人的私密資料，且對您所填的資料 都會保密、僅針對資料內容進行分析， 請儘可能依據您的實際感受填答各項問題。您的參與填 答，將為高科技產業的相關發展研究，帶來莫大貢獻。
這份問卷，僅需約 10 分鐘即可完成填答。
如果對本調查有任何疑問，請隨時利用 ilze.zepaa@gmail.com 與我聯繫。衷心歡迎並期待您的 快速回覆和任何指教。
Questions
Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree
1. 1
I would be very happy to spend the rest of my career in this organisation.我很樂意把我往後的工作人生都用在
I would be very happy to spend the rest of my career in this organisation.我很樂意把我往後的工作人生都用在