The role of design factors in influencing training transfer among small businesswomen

The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of design factors which consist of training content, training delivery, trainer competency and opportunity to use on small businesswomen's goal setting activities. The instrument for this research is adapted and modified from the Training Transfer Model and Model for Excellence (American Society of Training and Development Competency Research). Four independent variables: training content, training delivery and trainer's competency and opportunity to use; and goal setting as dependent variable formed the framework for this research. Multiple regressions were used to investigate the relationship between design factors and goal setting. Findings from a survey of 246 small businesswomen attending training programs organized by government agencies showed that opportunity to use made the strongest contribution towards goal setting followed by training content, trainer's competency and training delivery. Awareness on the constraints or barriers in design factors can assist the primary stakeholders (organizer and trainers) and human resource personnel in developing effective training programs which are expected to create a fair situation for them to accomplish their training objectives as well as beneficial to trainees to transfer the knowledge and skills to their own businesses.


I. INTRODUCTION
REAT emphasis on human resource development especially in developing human capital has become one of the main agenda for Malaysian government in order to meet the industry's requirement and contribute towards nation's economic growth [1]. Several plans have been made through a range of support mechanisms such as incentives and initiatives in investing in human capital. However, challenges in managing human resource in training and development still arise.
For instance, the Malaysian government put great emphasis on human resource development in its 6 th Malaysian Plan [2] where expansion on educational and training through several incentives for private sectors to develop their human resources was introduced. This effort is continued in the 10 th Malaysian Plan where skill training gets special emphasis. However, the outcome of the training in terms of its effectiveness is still difficult to achieve [3].
To determine the effectiveness of the training to the extent where trainees are able to apply the knowledge and skills they gained from training to their job or which is defined as training transfer [4] is difficult to measure or detect without proper training evaluation. With that, researchers and the practitioners need to work together.

II. TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT AND ENTREPRENEURS
Since the government is expected to see an increment of 37% from the contribution of SMEs (small medium sized enterprises) by year 2011 [5], steps need to be taken to ensure this target is achieved. One of the steps is to make certain that future and existing small business owner managers and entrepreneurs receive the right training programs so that they can pursue their intentions to create or expand their businesses to higher level which will directly contribute to the GNP of the country. As most of the researchers agree that training transfer is difficult and challenging to measure, some type of measurement must be implemented to prove that training has been effective.
A review on literature showed that previous studies on training transfers have looked at individual, environment and technological aspects [6][7][8][9] and came out with a variety of results on training transfer determinants which restrain or promote training transfer. However, the majority of the studies [10][11][12][13] focused on office employees and very limited study on small businesswomen. Due to this limitation and considering that small businesswomen are also vital contributors in today's economy [14], this research attempts to investigate the training design factors towards their goal setting. It is hoped that this study will highlight the factors that are beneficial to small businesswomen as well as to organizers and trainers.

I. Participants
The target population for this research is women attending basic business training programs organized by government agencies in Kuala Lumpur and state of Selangor which are in Klang valley. Klang Valley is chosen to be the location for this research because the majority of small and medium size enterprises are concentrated in central region: Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan and Selangor (31.1%) compared to Johor (10.4%) and the rest of the states except Perlis (10%) [15].
Therefore, women attending basic business training programs organized by MARA (Council of Trust for Bumiputera) under Ministry Rural and Regional Development,

B. Instrument
The instrument was adapted and modified from two models: Training Transfer Model by Baldwin and Ford [4] and Model of Excellence by McLagan and Bedrick [16] which also formed the framework for this research. To assess and capture the objectives of determining training transfer, four constructs for training transfer were chosen as independent variables: training content, training delivery, trainer competency and opportunity to use which formed the first section of the questionnaire. To assess the content of training that reflects the usefulness of the training, seven items were developed.
Seven items were designed to evaluate the delivery method used during training through demonstration, guidance and activities that will provide opportunities to trainees to transfer. To capture the ability and competency of the trainer based on capabilities, qualifications and experiences when conducting training, ten items were formulated. Seven items were designed to determine the presence or absence of the environmental barriers in their work environment. In order to investigate the relationship between training transfer and goal setting activities, one construct is developed for dependent variable: goal setting. Seven items were then constructed to measure the capability of the trainees in meeting their objectives to achieve their goal setting activities after attending training. All items for section 1 and 2 used Likert scale 1 to 5 where 1 is strongly disagree to 5 which is strongly agree.

C. Procedure
A short briefing on the objectives of the research was specified to the participants in terms of the confidentiality and consent for participating before circulating the questionnaire at the end of each training session,. A total of 400 questionnaires were personally distributed to the participants and 324 were returned representing 81 % response rate.
Since the target respondents are women who own businesses, seventy six questionnaires were not answered as the participants do not have any businesses. Seventy eight questionnaires were considered incomplete where they contained more than one page unanswered. Out of 324 returned questionnaires, only 246 were complete and considered usable for data analysis.
Out of 246 useable questionnaires the majority of the respondents (78%) have attended skill development training program whereas the balance (22%) attended entrepreneurial skill training.

D. Descriptive Findings
The majority of the respondents was between the ages of 40 and below (66%) and above 40 (34%). As compared with other studies, the age of respondents for this research are in the same group where small businesswomen or businesswomen who are involved in businesses either fulltime or part time are around 35 and below 50 years old [17][18][19][20][21][22].
For educational background, the majority of participants have secondary education (76%) whereas the balance has tertiary education (21%) and other additional skills development certificates (3%). This descriptive tallies with the census statistic of small and medium size enterprises as reported by Normah [23] where 86% of entrepreneurs in services and 95% in agriculture are holding SPM and below. The statistic was also similar with other studies on small businesswomen or entrepreneurs where majority of them earned secondary education [17][18][19]24] even though there are studies, which showed that small businesswomen or women entrepreneurs also have high percentage in tertiary education [20]. Again this educational background is related to the businesses they have where those who have tertiary educational involved in more high risk businesses [22,25].

IV. RESULTS
Since there are studies which empirically proved that respondents who have businesses came from family with business background [22] or career choice is usually influence by family [26], a test was done by testing this factor as control variable when running multiple regressions. The result from this test verified that having family with business background is not significant in influencing goal setting activities. In other words, having or not having family with business background does not contribute to achieving goal setting activities of small businesswomen after attending training. Further test was done in testing contribution of design factor towards goal setting. The result shows that design factor contributes about 56% of the variance in goal setting activities (R 2 change =.564, F change (5, 237) = 61.30, p< .05). It also proves that opportunity to use records the highest beta value (ȕ=.299, p< .05) followed by training delivery (ȕ=.218, p<.05), trainer competency (ȕ=.204, p<.05) and training content (ȕ=.196, p<.05). In summary it is confirmed that opportunity to use make the strongest unique contribution towards goal setting followed by training content, trainer competency and training delivery which contributed 5%, 2%, 2% and 2% respectively towards goal setting activities of small businesswomen. Appendix 1 displays the result.

V. DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATION
This research achieved its objective in investigating the relationship between design factors (training content, training delivery and trainer competency) and opportunity to use towards goal setting activities of small businesswomen and strong evidence of opportunity to use was found to contribute the most in influencing goal setting activities of small businesswomen followed by training content, trainer competency and training delivery. Hence the outcome of this research does support other studies in training transfer issues [10,11,[27][28][29] where it statistically justified that work environment such as support from management and opportunity to use in terms of providing conducive work environment in enabling workers to implement or use the skills or knowledge from training to their jobs is essential.
As highlighted by Handy [29] two categories of work environment that can be classified as transfer factors are work system and people related factors. For work system, the management has to make sure that the facilities or resources at the workplace are available to the workers in applying the new knowledge or skills from training. On the other hand, for people related factors, management also has to play their roles in sustaining the transfer process through encouragement, supports, guidance and willingness to change.
In can be concluded that this research has proved empirically that better design factors in terms of the positive conditions of work environment or opportunity to use that promotes training transfer, the contents that are applicable and related to the job and fulfills the needs of the trainees, variety methods used when delivering the training and competent trainer in conducting the training are main contributors to support the success of training transfer. However, thorough investigation should be done in identifying the support given by the management in enhancing training transfer such as before , during and after attending training as other studies showed that before, during and after training [30] and social support from management [31,32] also contributes to positive training transfer among trainees.
More specifically this research has contribute to the body of knowledge in training transfer issues and support the theoretical literature on training transfer determinants [33,34]  She is a senior lecturer from Faculty of Business Management (former Faculty of Office Management and Technology) with vast teaching experience in areas of business, management, computer and secretarial skills besides experience in management as well.