Influence of learning transfer factors on competencies and performance in the Sabah Hotel industry

• Main Author: Toh, Pei Sung
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: TX901-946.5 Hospitality industry. Hotels, clubs, restaurants, etc. Food service
• Online Access: https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/37789/1/24%20PAGES.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/37789/2/FULLTEXT.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/37789/

The hotel industry has become one of the major contributors to the gross domestic product (GDP) and has been identified as one of the core economic sectors in the 12 National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs). However, the hotel industry is confronted with the issues of strong competition such as the growth of registered hotels and uncertainty in the environments such as natural disasters, health emergencies and terrorist attack. As such competitive and uncertainty environment, hotels are aggressively boosting the promotional activities to attract and retain customer loyalty toward its hotel for the sustainability and growth. These issues have later highlighted employees are one of the important elements in the hotel industry as they are the main assets in providing excellent service quality towards the customers. Indeed, the hotel industry is facing challenges to enhance employee performance due to the low level of quality service and decrease the average occupancy rate provide strong justification of the need for enhancement. In order to provide an excellent service, employee training is a very prominent factor. Therefore, the training outcomes should be evaluated to ensure that the training contributed to an increase in competencies and employee performance. With regard to this, the learning transfer has become the most important factor because it is part of the training process that will influence the development of human capital and employee performance. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between learning transfer, competencies and performance among employees especially in Sabah hotel industry. Quantitative approach has been used for this study and the sample size consists of 331 operational employees. The data are analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 21 (SPSS 21) and SmartPLS 2.0. The study analyzed based on PLS-SEM to test the hypothesized relationship, which focuses on the measurement model and the structural model. The results of this study suggested that employee performance could be increased through learning transfer factors such as secondary influence and motivation. Besides that, the results also suggested that competencies could be increased through secondary influence, motivation, environment, ability and reaction. Moreover, this study found the evidences that competencies mediate the learning transfer factors and individual performance in the following three [3] relationships: (1) secondary influence and employee performance; (2) motivation and employee performance; and (3) environment and employee performance. This study contributes to the theory of the formation of a new model of the learning transfer system in which contains the elements of human resource outcomes and also the inclusion of a new variable such as a reaction; and secondly, the study contributes to the human resource practices by identifying the importance of learning transfer factors in the context of Sabah hotel industry.