Impact of professionalism of workplace learning support team on learning outcome

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to understand the impact of professionalism (PR) of the workplace learning support team on learning outcomes. The context of this study is an e-procurement system implementation. Management provides initial formal training (TR) to potential users of the system and also arranges informal learning support by deploying the support team for technical guidance/resolving issues on day-to-day basis for successful implementation. Learning outcome has been measured in terms of perceived ease of use (PEU) by employees and also in terms of the actual use (AU) of the system. This study also explores the role of timely and appropriate initial TR on learning outcomes. Design/methodology/approach An empirical study has been conducted by collecting survey data from 167 employees using an e-procurement system from India. SPSS 22.0 with add-in Process Macro v3.4 developed by Hayes has been used for statistical analysis. Findings The results indicate that the PR of the workplace learning support team positively influences employee’s PEU of the system and also the final required outcome in terms of the AU of the system. This study also found that the employee’s PEU of the system mediates the relationship between the PR of the workplace learning support team and the AU of the system. The result also indicates that higher is the user perception of the appropriateness of initial TR, higher is the effect of PR of the workplace learning team on user learning outcome. Originality/value This study is an attempt to investigate the unexplored aspect of workplace learning. This paper contributes by studying for the first time, the impact of PR of the workplace learning support team and appropriate initial TR in enhancing the learning outcome in the context of e-procurement implementation.