AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
into their work efficiency (such types of trainings are perceived
as a specific form of motivation) (Barrett, O'Connell, 2001). It is
worth mentioning that apart from specially organised employee
trainings in the enterprise there is also a form of practical
knowledge acquisition. However, this form of training is
frequently used by the management of the enterprise as an
unstructured and low-cost one, although from a formal point of
view it should rely on a clear curriculum, prepared workout
handouts related to the scope of performed vocational duties and
specific individual support of the trainer offered to the employee
attending the training (Jacobs, 2003).
2 Method
The aim of the conducted study was to establish the existence of
relationships between the power of formalisation of work in the
enterprise and implementation of trainings in the enterprise of a
specific level of organising within the scope of databases and
internal documentation. Therefore, two hypotheses were
formulated:
H1: There is a relationship between the indications of
respondents concerning the level of organising of trainings
related to internal documentation and their opinion on the level
of formalisation of work in the enterprise.
H2: There is a relationship between the indications of
respondents concerning the level of organising of trainings
related to databases present in the enterprise and their opinion on
the level of formalisation of work in the enterprise.
The following research questions were also posed:
1.
Between which levels of organising of trainings related to
internal documentation are there significant differences due
to the respondents’ opinion concerning the level of
formalisation of work in the enterprise?
2.
Between which levels of organising of trainings related to
databases are there significant differences due to the
respondents’ opinion concerning the level of formalisation
of work in the enterprise?
The Kruskal-Wallis test was applied in order to verify the
hypotheses. The Mann-Whitney test was applied for the
purposes of the posed research questions to compare the
variables in pairs in order to detect their statistically significant
difference towards each other (therefore, the hypotheses of their
statistically significant difference were tested for each pair of
variables).
The method of sampling for the study was of non-probability
nature. It assumed the form of convenience sampling, which
made it possible to obtain a relatively large group of respondents
for the study. In this way, a high ratio of return of Paper Self-
Administered Questionnaires (PSAQ) was ensured. The number
of questionnaires that were filled out and qualified for further
stages of the study amounted to 215. Each respondent
represented a different enterprise, these were also persons
occupying various positions in the organisational hierarchy.
The largest group of respondents (184 persons, 85.6%)
represented enterprises located on the territory of the Silesian
Voivodeship. As many as 13 enterprises (6%) were from Lesser
Poland Voivodeship. In the remaining cases the percentage of
enterprises from particular voivodeships did not exceed 2.3% of
the studied group.
The questions the respondents were asked concerning the level
of organising of trainings existing in the enterprise both within
the scope of creating and using internal documentation and
database resources contained the following answer versions
(according to the level of organising from the highest to the
lowest one): special trainings (dedicated trainings based on a
formally defined curriculum and conduction procedure), mixed
form of trainings, learning in the course of performance of
professional duties (lack of formal support for the learning of an
employee, there is, however, informal support from co-workers)
and lack of trainings (lack of any kind of formal and informal
support for the learning process of an employee). It should be
noticed that the mixed form of trainings was assigned according
to the theory of the issue of organising of trainings in the form of
performance of professional duties as well as simultaneous
support for this process through workout handouts and
appropriately conducted supervision (the so-called training on-
the-job) (Jacobs, 2003).
The respondents could tick one selected answer version related
to the form of training. For the purposes of the conducted
statistical analysis during data processing a code from a four-
level ordinal scale of measurement was assigned to each answer
version. The respondents were also asked about their opinion on
the level of formalisation of performance of professional duties
in the enterprise. In this case the answer was given directly on a
five-level Likert scale, where 1 indicated a low level, whereas 5
– a high level.
3 Results
The numbers of particular variants of the respondents’ answers
are presented in the table below (Table 1). In case of “the level
of formalisation of work” variable the largest number of
respondents indicated the following variants: rather high
(38.13%) and medium (34.41%). In case of organising of
trainings within the scope of internal documentation the
respondents most often indicated learning through performance
of duties (48.84%) and special trainings (23.26%). The most
popular answers to the trainings within the scope of creating and
using databases were as follows: through performance of duties
(41.39%) and lack of trainings (28.37%).
The Kruskal-Wallis test was applied in order to find out whether
the level of organising of trainings within the scope of internal
documentation in the opinion of the surveyed respondents occurs
independently from their opinion concerning the level of
formalisation of work or not. The Chi-square test value (at three
degrees of freedom) in this case amounted to 14.873, whereas its
significance to 0.002 (p<0.01). Therefore, it was necessary to
reject the hypothesis about the equalisation of distribution in the
compared subgroups. Thus, it was possible to make a conclusion
that the indicated levels of organising of trainings within the
scope of the rules governing the creation and usage of
documentation of the enterprise depend on the perceived level of
formalisation of work. The following values were obtained in
case of the level of organising of trainings within the scope of
databases (three degrees of freedom again): Chi-square value
18.011, and the value of the significance level 0.0001 (p<0.01).
It was possible to state also in this case that the levels of
organising of trainings within the scope of databases depend on
the level of formalisation of work.
In order to determine between which levels of organising of
trainings the actual differences occur, the decision was made to
apply the Mann-Whitney test and compare in pairs particular
levels of organising of trainings concerning internal
documentation of the enterprise (Table 2), as well as databases
(Table 3) as tested variables. It was done with regard to the
assessment of the respondents concerning the level of
formalisation of work in the enterprise (grouping variable).
While making an analysis of data presented in tables 2 and 3 it is
worth noticing for which cases the level of significance is lower
than 0.05 (it is indicative of a statistically significant difference
between the levels of organising of trainings with regard to the
grouping variable).
From the values of average ranks, the information about the level
of formalisation of performance of professional duties stated by
the respondents can also be read out. The higher the rank at a
given level of organising of trainings, the higher the level of
formalisation of work in the enterprises in the opinion of the
respondents (these issues should be considered within the
framework of the pairs of variables).
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