Aging and Training and Development

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Aging and training and developmentwillingness: Employee and supervisormindsets

ANNELIES E. M. VAN VIANEN1*, BETTY A. G. W. DALHOEVEN2

AND IRENE E. DE PATER1

1University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands2Gerritsen Adviesgroep, Bussum, The Netherlands

Summary In this study, we examined individual and situational factors that impact the relationshipbetween age and employee training and development willingness. We proposed that therelationship between age and training and development willingness would be moderated byemployees entity self-theory and perceived developmental support. Furthermore, we inves-tigated supervisors beliefs about the avoidance orientations of older employees and whetherthese beliefs would moderate the relationship between employee age and training anddevelopment willingness. The proposed moderation effects were found. Moreover, it wasshown that entity self-theory beliefs, perceived developmental support, and supervisoravoidance orientation beliefs were related to the training and development willingness ofolder subordinates. Copyright # 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction

The proportion of older individuals in the population and the workforce is increasing in many societies

(Hedge, Borman, & Lammlein, 2006). Politics and media tend to portray this graying as a problem

for economic innovation. Furthermore, organizations have concerns about the alleged lower

willingness of older workers to adapt to change (Isaksson & Johansson, 2000) while the human factor,

such as employees advanced knowledge and skills, has become the critical factor for organizations

adaptability (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006). In times of organizational change employees

should be willing to adopt new roles and acquire new skills in order to meet an organizations new

challenges (Pulakos, Arad, Donovan, & Plamondon, 2000). In this study, we examined the training and

development willingness of older employees in the context of an organizational change. Training anddevelopment willingness is defined as employees attitude toward a request from the organization to

participate in learning and training activities.

Older employees are expected to be less motivated and willing to involve themselves in additional

training and learning than younger employees (e.g., Lyon & Pollard, 1997). Surprisingly, little research

Journal of Organizational Behavior

J. Organiz. Behav. 32, 226247 (2011)

Published online 4 January 2011 in Wiley Online Library

(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.685

* Correspondence to: Annelies E. M. Van Vianen, Department of Psychology, Work and Organizational Psychology, University ofAmsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]

Copyright # 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 25 November 2008Revised 6 January 2010

Accepted 16 January 2010


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has directly tested this assumption. Related research has, however, shown that age had a negative

correlation with peoples motivation when participating in a training program (Colquitt, LePine, &

Noe, 2000). In addition, participation in continuing education as initiated by persons themselves was

found to be lower at older ages (Warr & Fay, 2001). The question is whether employees willingness to

participate in training and development if they are asked to do so by their organization also declines

with age, and if so, what factors may contribute to this decline.Many previous studies on aging in organizations have implicitly assumed that the aging factor itself

triggers specific motivational processes toward learning. For example, people of older ages may expect

that their capacities are declining due to their age, which may negatively influence their self-efficacy in

learning which, in turn, makes them less willing to pursue learning activities (Maurer, 2001; Maurer,

Barbeite, Weiss, & Lippstreu, 2008). Despite these general age-related mechanisms, older employees

vary with regard to their learning attitudes (McEnrue, 1989; Robson & Hansson, 2007). Factors causing

these differences may pertain to individual characteristics that are already present at a younger age but

become more influential when people progress in their careers. In the present study, we examined

individual and situational factors that impact the relationship between age and employee training and

development willingness. The individual factor in this study concerned employees implicit self-

theories. Situation factors concerned supervisors support and their age-related beliefs.

Employees implicit self-theories about the malleability of human abilities will influence theirtraining and development willingness, because people who believe that human abilities are fixed rather

than incremental are less oriented toward learning (Dweck & Molden, 2005). Peoples self-theory

beliefs remain relatively stable over time and are unrelated to age (Heckhausen & Dweck, 1998) but the

extent to which they influence peoples learning attitudes may change with age. Particularly for people

with fixed abilities beliefs we expected that age would be related to training and development

willingness, with younger workers being more willing to participate in training and development than

older ones. Younger employees will be open to learning even if they assume that human abilities are

fixed because they have relatively limited experiences on which they can base their (fixed) self-

evaluations. Moreover, since they are at the beginning of their career, they are expected to learn. In

contrast, learning is less obvious for older workers and implicit theories will, therefore, play a more

significant role in their learning attitudes.

Older employees training and development willingness will not only stem from internal forces, such

as their personal beliefs, but also from external forces, such as the beliefs of their supervisors. Previous

research has addressed this issue by assessing employees own perceptions about the developmental

support they receive from their supervisor (Maurer, Weiss, & Barbeite, 2003). Yet, the actual age-

related beliefs of supervisors and whether these are related to employees training attitudes have not

been investigated before. In this study, we therefore examined both employees perceived

developmental support and their supervisors age-related beliefs.

The aim of the present study was to investigate individual and situational factors that may influence

employees training and development willingness as related to their age. By incorporating an

individual factor that may particularly relate to the developmental attitudes of older workers while

not related to age, this study extends previous research that examined only age-related correlates

of older workers learning attitudes. By including independent supervisors age-related beliefs, thisstudy consolidates previous research that provided preliminary evidence of the impact of supervisor

attitudes as being based on subordinates reports. In the following section, we address the relationship

between age and training and development willingness. Next, we discuss the fundamental beliefs that

people may hold about the flexibility of their abilities and how these relate to their attitudes toward

learning in general and to the attitudes of older employees in particular. Finally, we will argue that the

age-related beliefs of supervisors are important for the training and development willingness of older

employees.

Copyright # 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 32, 226247 (2011)

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Age and Training and Development Willingness

Older people tend to be more oriented toward maintaining the status quo than younger ones (e.g.,

Ebner, Freund, & Baltes, 2006; Ogilvie, Rose, & Heppen, 2001), and they are expected to be more

reluctant to engage in new skill training (Kanfer & Ackerman, 2005; Warr, 2001). One potential reasonfor the lower participation of older employees in learning and developmental activities is that they may

experience specific constraints due to the biological changes associated with aging. Aging is often

linked to a decline in cognitive and intellectual abilities (Ackerman, Beier, & Bowen, 2002). In our

current society in which multitasking is the rule rather than the exception, people of midlife and above

may feel less competent than younger adults (Li, Lindenberger, Freund, & Baltes, 2001). Older workers

may believe that older people in general are less able to learn and/or they believe that they themselves

are no longer capable of learning new skills. One way or the other, they tend to have less confidence in

their abilities to learn new skills (Touron & Hertzog, 2004), which may reduce their training and

development willingness. Although this proposition is plausible for the group of older workers as a

whole, there are of course exceptions to this general rule. Some older workers may remain interested in

learning and development whereas others may not. These differences among older workers could relate

to their idiosyncratic beliefs, the support they perceive from their work environment, and the beliefsand behaviors of significant others (e.g., Nauta, Van Vianen, Van Der Heijden, Van Dam, & Willemsen,

2009).

Employees Beliefs: Fixed or Incremental Self-theory

Companies, but also literatures on aging, often refer to older workers as a specific category of people,

thereby ignoring the fact that these workers have carried their unique characteristics with them from the

time they were young. Specific types of beliefs that are central to peoples learning behaviors may

already have been present at a younger age but may start to play an even greater role as individuals

become older. Such core beliefs concern the implicit self-theories that people hold. Self-theories are

beliefs about the fixedness or malleability of personal characteristics (Dweck, 2000). The first type of

beliefs has been referred to as an entity self-theory, whereas the second type of beliefs reflects an

incremental self-theory. Individuals who adhere to an entity theory assume that personal attributes such

as intelligence and personality are fixed, whereas individuals who hold an incremental theory believe

that these attributes are malleable. Research has shown that about 40 per cent of people tend to endorse

the entity theory, about 40 per cent endorse the incremental theory, and 20 per cent are undecided

(Dweck & Molden, 2005). Self-theory beliefs are, however, domain specific. Thus, one may hold a

fixed theory regarding intelligence and an incremental theory about personality (Dweck, Chiu, & Hong,

1995).

Peoples implicit self-theories form the core of their meaning system and direct their attributions andactions (Dweck, 2000). In addition, self-theories orient people to different goals with incremental

theorists placing more priority on learning than entity theorists (Hong, Chiu, Dweck, Lin, & Wan,

1999). Learning in the work context is focused on the development of work related capacities and skills.

When employees believe that these capacities and skills are fixed, they will be oriented to holding their

current tasks on which they perform well in order to avoid the threat of possible failure. These

employees value competence validation rather than competence acquisition (Dweck & Molden, 2005).

In contrast, when employees believe that capacities are malleable they will be willing to learn and


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228 A. E. M. VAN VIANEN ET AL.


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invest in their further development on-the-job. Moreover, enjoyment and self-confidence of

incremental theorists are linked to the mastery of an activity instead of only accomplishment.

The impact of self-theories on attitudes, goals, and behaviors has been mostly studied with students

(Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004). It was shown, for example, that students incremental self-theory was

strongly associated with pursuing learning goals and spending effort on task mastery (e.g., Hong et al.,

1999). As an exception, Maurer and colleagues (Maurer, Mitchell, & Barbeite, 2002; Maurer, Wrenn,Pierce, Tross, & Collins, 2003) have addressed peoples implicit self-theories in an organizational

context. They, for instance, examined the relationship between employees self-theory about the

malleability of intelligence and their involvement in developmental activities after having received

3608 feedback about their skills. They found that the more employees espoused an entity self-theory of

intelligence the less they were involved in off-the-job development activities such as reading books and

attending seminars or workshops. Employees entity self-theory was, however, not related to on-the-

job activities such as asking for feedback, working on skills on-the-job, and receiving coaching. The

researchers attributed these unexpected results to the specific measure they had used, namely

intelligence: An entity self-theory of intelligence is more likely related to academic learning activities

such as reading books (the off-the-job activities) than to on-the-job training activities and feedback

seeking. They, therefore, called for additional research that uses self-theory measures that have a

stronger conceptual link with the dependent variable. In the current study, we took note of thissuggestion and measured peoples beliefs about their general capabilities since these are most relevant

for training and learning activities.

The role of self-theories in the attitudes of older workers has been ignored in the literature on aging.

This is unfortunate for two reasons. First, self-theories give us entree into the meaning system that

people use to construct meaning in competence-relevant situations (Dweck & Molden, 2005, p.122).

Self-theories are fundamental for ones focus on competence validation or competence acquisition.

According to Dweck and Molden Dweck and Molden, 2005 (2005, p.130): The impact of self-

theories can be seen at the most basic attentional level in the brain activity that prepares people to

learn. Second, since self-theories are basic yet can be changed through specific interventions (Dweck,

2006), examining the role of older workers self-theories may provide organizations a tool for

influencing peoples learning attitudes. In case an organizations older workers would refrain from

learning activities, this attitude could be changed by interventions directed at the underlying self-

theories they hold.

Based on the research as presented above, a negative relationship between employees entity self-

theory of capabilities and their training and development willingness can be expected. Moreover, it is

plausible to assume that entity self-theory beliefs will also influence the expected relationship between

age and training and development willingness. This relationship will exist for entity theorists but not for

incremental theorists. Older workers who believe that peoples capacities are malleable will assume

that training can further enhance their capabilities. The training attitudes of this type of older workers

will not differ from those of similar younger workers. Yet, differences in training attitudes will

particularly exist between younger and older entity theorists in that younger entity theorists will be

more willing to participate in training than older entity theorists.

Young adults start their career with the idea that they have to learn in their job in order to be able tokeep the job and build their CV. Moreover, they have rather vague ideas about their skills and capacities

(Van Vianen, De Pater, & Preenen, 2009). Through their work experiences they gradually learn more

about the types of activities they find easy or difficult to master. Thus, even if a career starter may

believe that peoples capabilities are fixed, he or she will nevertheless put effort in learning and training

in order to learn more about ones own capabilities and to enhance ones experiences. Participation in

training activities is a given rather than a choice for younger workers, whereas these activities are less

obvious for older workers. Hence, younger entity theorists will be more willing to invest in training and


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developmental activities than their older counterparts. Consequently, largest differences in training and

development willingness as caused by peoples implicit self-theories will be found among older

workers.

This proposition can be further substantiated with trait activation theory. This theory posits that traits

manifest in behaviors only in situations where the trait is relevant. A situation is relevant to a trait if it

provides cues for the expression of trait-relevant behavior (Tett & Guterman, 2000). In a similar vein, itcan be argued that peoples implicit self-theory manifests in their training and development willingness

when the situation asks for making choices pertaining to possible training activities. Especially in the

face of organizational changes when older employees are confronted with options for training, their

entity self-theory will be activated.

To summarize, we expected that entity theorists as opposed to incremental theorists would be less

willing to put effort in training and developmental activities. Furthermore, we expected that implicit

self-theory would influence the relationship between age and training and development willingness.

Our hypotheses were as follows:

Hypothesis 1: Entity self-theory beliefs are negatively related to training and development

willingness.

Hypothesis 2: Entity self-theory beliefs moderate the relationship between age and training and

development willingness such that age is most strongly and negatively related to training and

development willingness for people with high-entity self-theory beliefs.

Perceived Developmental Support and SupervisorsAge-related Beliefs

Supervisors are important for the learning attitudes of their employees. Research has shown that

supervisor support related to employees training attitudes and developmental activities (Maurer et al.,

2002; Noe & Wilk, 1993). Supervisors can give their support in several ways. For example, they have a

direct say in peoples training activities and can provide them with the time and resources that are

necessary for on-the-job or off-the-job learning. In addition, they can verbally encourage their

employees to reflect on their development and to seek for opportunities to learn new skills. In the

current study, we focused on this latter type of support and measured employees perceived supervisor

support.

In line with earlier research we expected that employees perceived developmental support from the

supervisor would be related to their training and development willingness. In addition, we expected that

perceived developmental support would moderate the relationship between age and training and

development willingness. Specifically, we reasoned that older employees when felt supported by their

supervisor would be as willing as younger employees to participate in learning and developmentalactivities. Yet, differences in training attitudes of younger and older employees would particularly exist

under conditions of low perceived developmental support.

First, younger employees generally show more initiatives toward educational activities than older

employees (Warr & Fay, 2001). Hence, younger employees will involve in these activities despite the

low perceived developmental support, whereas older employees will be less likely do so. In addition,

young employees are faced with other types of age-related norms and expectations than older ones.

Society in general expects young people to grow and develop, and to progress in their careers. In


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contrast, older people are confronted with societal norms and expectations that refer to settlement,

stability, or decline in aspirations and opportunities. These stereotypical contexts are beneficial for the

learning attitudes of young workers but detrimental for those of older workers (Maurer, Wrenn, &

Weiss, 2003).

The perceived lack of developmental support will impact younger and older employees differently.

Older employees may perceive the little support of their supervisor as reflecting prevailing negativeexpectations about older people and as representing the (implicit) policy of the organization regarding

older workers. Furthermore, because older employees tend to have a lower self-efficacy regarding their

learning capacities (e.g., Maurer, Weiss, et al., 2003), the perceived lack of developmental support may

further strengthen these lower self-efficacy beliefs. Research based on the social cognitive approach to

career development has evidenced that self-efficacy beliefs influence ones intentions to pursue specific

career activities (e.g., Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994). Self-efficacy beliefs are among others influenced

by the verbal persuasion of salient others, such as employees supervisor (Bandura, 1986). Without the

verbal persuasion of their supervisor, older employees have to rely on other sources that could foster

their self-efficacy beliefs, such as their own recent learning experiences (performance attainment) and

those of their older peers (vicarious experience). However, these alternative sources may be absent as

well since peoples learning experiences tend to decline with age (Hedge et al., 2006). We, thus,

hypothesized the following:

Hypothesis 3: Perceived developmental support is positively related to training and development

willingness.

Hypothesis 4: Perceived developmental support moderates the relationship between age and training

and development willingness such that age is most strongly and negatively related to training and

development willingness for people who perceive little developmental support.

In this study, we furthermore examined supervisors actual beliefs about older employees.

Supervisors may have stigmatizing perceptions of older employees. It is quite common in organizations

to assume that older employees seek for stability (e.g., Finkelstein, Burke, & Raju, 1995) and, thus, will

avoid activities they are not familiar with. This belief refers to the assumed learning avoidance

orientation of older employees, an orientation that has been distinguished in goal orientation theory

(Dweck, 1986; Elliott & Dweck, 1988). Goal orientation refers to the underlying goals that people

adapt and pursue in achievement and learning situations (Dweck, 1986; Dweck & Leggett, 1988).

Individuals with a learning-avoidance goal orientation strive to avoid deterioration of their current

skills rather than to master new skills (Elliot & McGregor, 2001). They seek competence validation

through the performance of tasks they already master. It has been shown that the pursuit of avoidance

goals undermines the competence experiences people need for continued growth and development

(Elliot and Dweck, 2005Elliot & Dweck, 2005). If a supervisor beliefs that older workers have a

learning avoidance orientation his/her older employees may act accordingly.

Generally, people tend to be sensitive to the expectations of others. This phenomenon has been

referred to as the Pygmalion effect, a type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby individuals act in

accordance with the beliefs of salient others such as their teacher (in a school context) or supervisor (ina work context). For example, if a supervisor has high expectations about the performance of a group of

employees, all else being equal, this group of employees may perform better than employees for whom

expectations are less high (e.g., Kierein & Gold, 2000). The working of this mechanism has been

ascribed to different mediating processes, such as supervisors differential verbal feedback and subtle

supportive actions. Furthermore, it was found that the Pygmalion effect operates as strong when

expectancies are induced for whole groups as when expectancies are induced for individuals (Kierein &

Gold, 2000).


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Although most research on the Pygmalion effect concerned peoples performances (e.g., Eden,

1993), this effect may also hold for other outcomes such as the developmental attitudes and actions of

employees. One medium through which supervisors beliefs can affect the learning attitudes and

behaviors of their employees is the input supervisors provide. In school settings it was shown that the

Pygmalion effect can be elicited by teachers who give more difficult material to the students and

assigning them challenging tasks (Harris & Rosenthal, 1985). In a similar vein, supervisors who believethat older workers will prefer tasks they already master may create a work environment in which their

older subordinates are expected to keep their current tasks rather than to take upon new types of

activities. Because the performance of new activities stimulates learning and development (McCauley,

Ruderman, Ohlott, & Morrow, 1994), supervisor beliefs about the avoidance orientation of older

workers may indirectly undermine the developmental opportunities and attitudes of their older

subordinates.

We expected that the relationship between age and training and development willingness would be

particularly strong for employees with a supervisor who beliefs that older workers have a

learning avoidance orientation. Supervisors beliefs concern older employees only and thus will relate

to the training and development willingness of their older subordinates and not their younger ones.

Likewise, the developmental attitudes of younger and older employees will be more similar if

supervisors do not have such strong beliefs about the learning avoidance orientation of olderemployees. We proposed

Hypothesis 5: Supervisors beliefs about the learning avoidance orientation of older employees

moderate the relationship between age and training and development willingness such that age is

most strongly and negatively related to training and development willingness when the supervisor

beliefs that older employees have a learning avoidance orientation.

Supervisors general beliefs about the learning avoidance orientation of older people may be related

to the actual learning avoidance orientation of their older subordinates. To explore this, we also

measured employees avoidance orientation in this study.

Method

Research context and procedure

Data were obtained from employees and supervisors working in a medium sized public city council in

the Netherlands. The effects of an aging workforce are tangible in the public sector because about 53

per cent of the working population in the public sector in the Netherlands is older than 45 years of age

(CBS, 2008). All employees (N 340) and supervisors (N 36) of the public city council were asked

to fill out a larger organizational survey with questions about their job and their organizationspractices, of which the present research was a part. The organization was facing a change, including a

transformation of the organizations structure, which could have implications for the content of

peoples jobs. The top management team of this organization was concerned with the relatively high

proportion of older employees (mean age within the organization was 46.1 years) while the proportion

and entry of young employees was quite small. Organizational changes were among others needed in

order to prepare for the coming exodus of older employees. Many people in the Netherlands retire

between 55 and 65 years of age with a peak at 60 (Bruggink, 2007).


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Participants

Those employees and supervisors who completed their surveys, sealed them in a provided envelope,

and returned them directly to the researchers. The survey response rate was 61.2 per cent for employees

and 83.3 per cent for supervisors. Respondents were 208 employees and 30 supervisors, of which two

supervisors could not be linked to the sample of employees. Mean number of employees per supervisorwas 7 (SD 4.5) with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 18 employees in one of the groups. The

sample of employees comprised 102 women (50.7 per cent) and 99 men. Sex of seven respondents was

unknown. Their mean age was 44.4 years (SD 10.42), mean organizational tenure was 13.17 years

(SD 11.20), and mean job tenure was 6.94 years (SD 7.30). The gender and age demographics in

our sample correspond with those of the organization as a whole (47 per cent women and a mean age of

46.1). Twenty per cent of the employees had received high-school education only, 80 per cent had

received bachelor or masters degrees. The types of jobs involved are typical for a public city council,

such as administrative jobs, staff positions, controllers, technical support, legal advisers, financial jobs,

and desk clerks.

The sample of supervisors comprised of 7 women and 23 men. Their mean age was 49.1 years

(SD 6.47), mean organizational tenure was 14.21 years (SD 10.16), and mean job tenure was 4.97

years (SD 3.30). All supervisors had bachelor degrees.

Measures

Only measures used in the present study are described. The employee survey included questions about

demographics and items that measured entity self-theory, perceived developmental support, and

training and development willingness, and other measures that were part of a larger study on

employees work experiences and attitudes. The supervisor survey included among other things

questions about demographics and supervisors beliefs about the mastery avoidance orientations of

older employees. All items were scored on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from strongly disagree (1)

to strongly agree (5).

Entity self-theory: As in previous studies (e.g., Chiu, Hong, & Dweck, 1997; Hong et al., 1999), a

three-item questionnaire was used to measure participants entity self-theory about capabilities. The

items are Your capabilities are something about you that you cant change very much; You have

certain capabilities and you really cant do much to change it; and If you dont have a specific

capability, you cannot really learn it. The higher the participants scores, the more they believe that

capabilities are fixed. We followed the procedure of other researchers by not including items that depict

an incremental theory, because it has been shown that incremental items are highly compelling and

more socially desirable as well (Hong et al., 1999; p. 590). Furthermore, it has been shown that

disagreement with entity-theory items can be taken to represent agreement with the incremental theory

(e.g., Dweck et al., 1995). The internal reliability of the scale was .72.

Perceived developmental supportwas measured with five items (see Nauta et al., 2009) that reflect

employees perceptions of supervisors positive attitudes toward and encouragement of employeeslearning and development. An example item is: My supervisor wants me to develop myself. The

internal reliability of the scale was .84.

Employee avoidance orientations were measured with three items derived from the original 5-item

scale as developed and used in earlier research (Elliot & McGregor, 2001; Van Yperen & Janssen,

2002). Furthermore, the Dutch items were used in a study of Janssen and Prins (2007). Due to

restrictions regarding the length of our survey we selected three items that showed to have good factor

loadings in these earlier studies. Employees responded to the question I prefer to perform those types


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of tasks . . .: on which I have little risk to fail, I can easily manage, I completely master. The

internal reliability of the scale was .65.

Supervisor avoidance orientation beliefs, that is, their general beliefs about the avoidance

orientation of older employees were measured with a similar set of items. Supervisors responded to the

question: Older employees prefer to perform those types of tasks . . .: on which they have little risk

to fail, they can easily manage, they completely master. The internal reliability of the scale was.65.

Training and development willingness was measured with five items that were derived from the

Training and Development Willingness measure of Van Dam (2003). An example item is: On request

of the organization, I am willing to do additional courses and training. The internal reliability of the

scale was .91.

Analytical approach

We performed a confirmatory factor analysis to examine whether the employee measures were different

constructs, because employee self-reports are vulnerable to same source/common method bias

(Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). The overall fit of the measurement model to the data

was estimated with LISREL 8.80 (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1996). A four-factor model (including

employee avoidance orientations, entity theory of capacities, perceived developmental support, andtraining and development willingness) was compared with a one-factor model (including all scale

items). The four-factor model yielded a better fit to the data (x2 218.01, p< .001, df 98, CFI .95,

IFI .95, SRMR .06) than the one-factor solution (x2 900.73, p< .001, df 104, CFI .72,

IFI .72, SRMR .16; D x2 682.72 and D df 6). Thus, the data presented support for treating the

scales as separate constructs.

For testing our Hypotheses, we used hierarchical regression analysis. Because employees in our

sample can be considered as nested within work groups, the data collected within work groups were not

independent from each other. Non-interdependence among observational data violates a basic

assumption of traditional linear model analyses and results in a-error inflation (Raudenbush & Bryk,

2002). By means of multilevel analyses, it is possible to control for the dependence of data stemming

from the same groups and to keep the a-error level constant. Before testing our hypotheses we,

therefore, first estimated the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) to assess the proportion of variance

in training and development willingness explained by work group. If there is between work group

variance multilevel regression analyses are warranted. If the between work group variance is close to

zero, ordinary linear regression can be used. When testing the proposed moderation effects with

ordinary linear regression, we followed the procedure as recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986). To

avoid multicollinearity and to facilitate the interpretation of results, all independent variables were

centered before calculating the interaction terms (see also Aiken & West, 1991).

Results

Table 1 displays the means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients among the variables of this

study. Because older employees tend to stay longer with their organization and in their job than younger

employees, significant correlations between age and tenure have been found in previous research (e.g.,

Nauta et al., 2009). Our results also show strong correlations between age, organizational tenure, and

job tenure, ranging from r .40, p< .01 to r .62, p< .01. In the further analyses, we will control for

organizational and job tenure because we aimed to examine relationships with age rather than tenure.


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Table1.Means,standa

rddeviationsandcorrelationsofthestudyvariablesofemployees

Mean

SD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Gendera

0.49

0.50

Education

b

0.80

0.40

.1

6

Age

44.3

9

10.43

.24

.1

2

Organizationaltenure

13.1

7

11.20

.21

.22

.62

Jobtenure

6.94

7.30

.11

.30

.40

.62

Employeeavoidanceorientation

2.69

0.95

.01

.1

5

.0

1

.04

.16

Entityself-theory

2.19

0.79

.06

.1

4

.10

.07

.19

.30

Perceiveddevelopmentalsupport

3.80

0.83

.0

9

.0

4

.1

6

.14

.1

5

.0

8

.04

Traininganddevelopmentwillingness

4.28

0.88

.1

1

.10

.3

0

.33

.2

6

.2

0

.30

.41

Note.

Nvariesfrom183to201duetomissingvariables.

aWomen

0,

Men

1.bLower

0,Higher1.p

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