Title: The impact of employee training and development on tacit knowledge transfer and the mediating role of trust

Authors: Helena Bulińska-Stangrecka; Anna Bagieńska

Addresses: Faculty of Administration and Social Sciences, Warsaw University of Technology, Plac Politechniki Street 1, 00-661 Warszawa, Poland ' Faculty of Engineering Management, Bialystok University of Technology, Wiejska Street 45, 15-351 Bialystok, Poland

Abstract: This paper focuses on employees' training and development as a significant factor facilitating knowledge transfer. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of employee training and development on tacit knowledge transfer mediated via interpersonal trust. The target population of this study are employees from the telecommunications sector (n = 175). Mediation analyses were conducted, the multiplied regression method and simple mediation model with bootstrapping were applied to analyse the data according to mediation analysis. Cronbach alpha and McDonald's omega are used to verify data reliability. This paper finds that training and development influences tacit knowledge transfer and interpersonal trust mediates this relationship. The results showed that training and development has a positive and significant relationship with tacit knowledge transfer, mediated via interpersonal trust. These findings supported the importance of competency development and employee training as a facilitating condition for effective tacit knowledge dissemination on the basis of mutual trust.

Keywords: trust; tacit knowledge; knowledge transfer; knowledge management; training and development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLC.2021.116668

International Journal of Learning and Change, 2021 Vol.13 No.4/5, pp.474 - 489

Received: 09 Sep 2019
Accepted: 05 Nov 2019
Published online: 29 Jul 2021 *

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