TRANSFER OF LEARNING IN POSTGRADUATE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMMES

There is an increased recognition by the organizations of the need to analyze the results of investments in different types of formal learning. By investing in formal learning, organizations need to assess whether individuals are transferring what they have learned through behavioral changes at work. However, they don’t know how to do so, leading to the problem or gap of learning transfer. In addition, there is a need to better define and operationalize the construct learning transfer and present the differences between transfer as use and as efficiency. Although, there is an increase number of academic research on learning transfer, there is a scarcity of studies including long-term courses offered by higher education institutions. In this study we developed and tested a comprehensive model of transfer of learning in a context of postgraduate management programmes. Based on the taxonomy of use proposed by Yelon et al. (2014), we operationalized the dependent variable transfer as use as a second order latent variable with five dimensions. The model also includes five independent variables: transfer design, critical reflection, organizational cynicism, job autonomy and learning culture. We tested the hypotheses with a sample of 424 students and graduates of postgraduate management programmes in Brazil. Data were submitted to descriptive statistical analysis and multivariate techniques, including correlations, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) for hypothesis testing. The results confirmed three of the five hypotheses that predicted direct relationships with the dependent variable: critical reflection, transfer design and learning culture.