AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
ORGANISING OF EMPLOYEE TRAININGS RELATED TO DOCUMENTATION AND DATABASES
a
MARCIN KOMAŃDA
University of Economics in Katowice, 1 Maja 50, Katowice 40-287
email:
a
marcin.komanda@ue.katowice.pl
Results presented are related to the project entitled „The dynamics of strategic
behaviours in the perspective of organisatonal learning” (2016-2017) financed by the
funds for maintaining the scientific potential (supervisor:
MarcinKomańda, Ph.D.).
Abstract: The aim of the article is to establish whether the level of organising level of
employee trainings within the scope of creating and using internal documentation and
databases of the enterprise (the so-called cold knowledge resources) is related to the
level of formalisation of work in the enterprise. The opinions of respondents were
studied with the use of a survey questionnaire and then they were analysed with the
use of the Kruskal-Wallis and the Mann-Whitney tests. The existence of the
relationship between the form of employee training organisation and the level of
formalisation of work in the enterprise (grouping variable) was confirmed. The
differences between particular pairs of levels of organising of employee training due to
a grouping variable were also indicated.
Keywords: employee trainings, knowledge management, documentation, databases.
1 Introduction
Employee trainings in enterprises are a solution which is, above
all, supposed to develop employees’ competences (Matwiejczuk,
2018). The effects of their implementation may be as follows:
more accurate performance of employee’s duties by persons
employed in the organisation, growth of personal engagement of
employees and a greater tendency to manifest an initiative as
well as wiser acting (Wolniak, Grebski, 2018). Therefore, from
this perspective, employee trainings constitute a solution within
the scope of learning of employees which is part of a subsystem
of hot knowledge in the enterprise and they are perceived as a
form of its support by an organization (
Karaś, 2012). The
description of development of employees’ soft and hard skills
frequently appears in the reference books (Gajdzik, 2018), the
issue of conducting trainings in enterprises within the scope of
creating, circulation and use of the resources of codified
knowledge and information which already exist in the
organisation, and which are, in turn, an element of the subsystem
of organisational cold knowledge, is much less popular among
researchers. Any works within this scope treat the issue as an
element which accompanies detailed managerial issues, e.g.
safety management (Warwas,
Sołtys, 2018). It should be
emphasized that creating knowledge resources in the enterprise
may depend on the process of sharing knowledge as well as on
the existing and arising organisational documentation
(Andreeva, Kianto, 2011). Especially due to the fact that these
processes are related to, among other things, making predictions
and coordinating collaboration within the enterprise (
Komańda,
Sowa, 2014), and the technologies applied in the enterprise often
even force an appropriate codification of knowledge and
information (
Dziubińska, Woźniak, 2015). Documentation in
such case is a necessity for assignment of tasks, spread of results
(Da Silva Wells et. al., 2011) and their duplication (Nosál,
Porubän, 2016). A crucial aspect of these issues is accepted and
motivated use of databases (Marler, 2006).
1.1 Employee trainings vs.
knowledge resources in the
enterprise
At the beginning of the consideration of the issue raised it should
be noticed that the issue of employee trainings is not only an
economic or organizational problem but also a legal one. Legal
regulations introduced impose a duty on an employer to enable
employees to develop their professional qualifications
(Pisarczyk, 2003) and they are still a significant element of the
labour code (Polish Labor Code, 2018). This multidimensional
nature of employee trainings results in consequences which
affect the functioning of the organization, especially within the
scope of human resources management. It is an important
observation since employees may connect professional work
with the possibility to pursue formal education (
Komańda,
2015). Lack of properly integrated attitude to this challenge
leads to low efficiency of trainings conducted in the enterprise
(or on its commission) (
Różański, 2012). Moreover, the
necessity to formulate clear rules and criteria in this respect is
emphasized (Balcerzyk, Smal, 2017). At the same time, the fact
that employees attend trainings, especially when trainings meet
their expectations, is, in turn, related to their level of motivation
and attachment to the organisation (Owoyemi et. al., 2011), and,
as a result, to the development of their potential (Mlkva et.al.,
2017).
The above-mentioned challenges related to the issues of
organising of employee trainings and support of the functioning
of the enterprise as well as simultaneous development of
individual employees are connected with hot and cold
knowledge in the organisation. Cold knowledge represents a
fundamental system of mutual interdependencies (Gobillot,
2013) between particular parts of the organization as well as
between their individual members. Therefore, it is based on the
organisational formalism the basis of which is the source of
understanding for what should be done and why. These
interdependencies may also be considered between enterprises,
especially in case of the existence of a legal and organizational
correlation. As the results of the studies show, dependence/
independence of a business entity may influence the applied
forms of trainings within the scope of cold knowledge which is
expressed, among other things, by work regulations as well as
organisational routines (
Komańda, 2017(a)). These aspects
become particularly significant in the context of establishing
procedures and using further resources of cold knowledge of the
enterprise, i.e. internal documentation of the enterprise as well as
organisational databases (
Komańda, 2017 (b)).
Cold knowledge is contrasted with the so-called hot knowledge
which is related to the experience of individual persons. It has
been defined as “people’s skills acquired through education, life
and professional experience” and its tight connection with
individual motivation is pointed out at the same time (Materska,
2005). The enterprise in the matter of hot knowledge is therefore
interested, above all, in the development of soft and hard
competences of employees and choice of appropriate solutions
within the scope of their motivation (
Komańda, 2016).
1.2 Issues of employee trainings organisation
These observations make it possible to state that the organisation
of trainings in the enterprise has to be aimed at creating
conditions for full use of the potential of employees as well as
the organization itself, which is a challenging task (
Różański,
2012). It needs to take into consideration mutual relationships
between a formal system as well as less obvious and less formal
relationships which occur parallelly in the enterprise (Rokita,
Dz
iubińska, 2017). It is related to the necessity to perceive these
issues also through the prism of the conversion process of the
forms of knowledge (
Mikuła, 2006) (in a two-way manner
between practical, individual knowledge – the so-called hot
knowledge and the so-called cold knowledge which is
formalized and widespread in the enterprise).
In the source literature, the issue of trainings conducted in the
enterprises is related, above all, to the issue of efficient work and
its improvement (Billett, 2001). The issue of learning, which is
considered in a multi-dimensional manner is also a part of these
considerations. Learning in the enterprise is presented as a
process conditioned by undertaken actions (activity) of the
members of the organisation as well as the organisation itself,
their individual and organisational situational context (Kim,
1998) and prevailing organizational culture (Evans, Rainbird,
2002). To a large extent, the organisational culture is from this
perspective expressed by a way of collective thinking
characteristic for a given organisation (
Bučková, 2017). With
reference to the issue of efficient work it should be noticed that
trainings may concern particular aspects of conducted work or
they may be of a general nature. As the results of the studies
show, trainings of a general nature seem to translate into the
engagement of employees to a greater extent, and, as a result,
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