The relationship between training outsourcing and employee commitment to organization

The relationship between training outsourcing and employee commitment to organization The relationship between training outsourcing and employee commitment to organization Sanghamitra Chaudhuria and.The relationship between training outsourcing and employee commitment to organization The relationship between training outsourcing and employee commitment to organization Sanghamitra Chaudhuria and.

Human Resource Development International, 2014 Vol 17, No 2, 145–163, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2014.886444 The relationship between training outsourcing and employee commitment to organization Sanghamitra Chaudhuria* and Kenneth R Bartlettb a Training Administration, State of Minnesota, St Paul, MN, USA; bDepartment of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA (Received March 2013; accepted 30 December 2013) In many countries, the human resource practice of training outsourcing has emerged as one of the fastest growing segments of the broader business process outsourcing industry In spite of the growing popularity in professional practice, training outsourcing continues to be subjected to critical review and ongoing debate with most attention focused on the decision to ‘outsource’ or ‘not to outsource’ However, there exists a shortage of research on training outsourcing as a human resource development (HRD) practice and the potential relationships with desired organizational outcomes including employee commitment This exploratory international study extends previous research that has examined the relationship between training and organizational commitment by focusing exclusively on outsourced training Data were collected from information technology firms in two countries: India and the United States Results showed positive relationships between specific measures of employee perceptions of quality, usefulness and supervisor support for outsourced training with organizational commitment Recommendations are made for future research as well as for professional practice to guide HRD practitioners involved in the rapidly growing global practice of training outsourcing Keywords: human resource development; training outsourcing; organizational commitment; employee attitudes; social exchange theory Over the past two decades a number of global environmental shifts have resulted in the emergence of several new human resource (HR) practices within organizations operating internationally Numerous previous studies have shown that HR practices and specifically human resource development (HRD) influence organizational performance both directly and indirectly through individual work-related attitudes, such as commitment, motivation and satisfaction (Guest 1997, 1999; Huselid 1995; Joo and Shim 2010; Kooij et al 2010) In order to remain competitive organizations need to adopt HR practices that continue to foster performance There is a constant need to develop and implement improved HR practices with a corresponding imperative for research to understand the relationship of these practices on desired organizational outcomes This is even more pressing for international organizations in the dynamic information technology (IT) industry where the rate and impact of change, pressures for performance and the need for heavy investment in HRD are noted (Kuo et al 2010; Kuruvilla and Ranganathan 2010) Kooij et al (2010) suggested that high commitment HR practices, including training and development, aim to elicit a strong bond of attachment to the organization, leading to improved job performance and other positive outcomes Training is often singled out as one of the *Corresponding author Email: Sanghamitra.chaudhuri@state.mn.us © 2014 Taylor & Francis 146 S Chaudhuri and K.R Bartlett most important investments for enhancing intellectual capital vital for the organization’s competitive sustainability (Bulut and Culha 2010) The benefits of training are not limited to improved performance with other advantages such as empowerment, self-efficacy, effectiveness and profitability confirmed by research (Aguinis and Kraiger 2009) In more recent years organizations have sought to confirm if desired outcomes result from the adoption of new approaches to the management and development of HRs One practice drawing a great deal of attention from HR scholars and practitioners is outsourcing In simple terms, Perry (1997) defined outsourcing as turning over to another organization’s employees to carry out tasks previously performed by one’s own employees Feeney, Lacity, and Wilcox (2005) suggested that outsourcing has now become a megatrend in many industries Organizations have outsourced core and non-core human resource management (HRM) and HRD activities (Babcock 2004; Greer, Youngblood, and Gray 1999), although this has been more recent compared to the outsourcing of IT, sales and marketing, and facility operation and maintenance The primary reason stated for this later adoption was that HR was often considered too sensitive to be outsourced (Shen 2005) Cook (1999) defined outsourcing of HR activity as ‘having a third-party service provider or vendor furnish, on an ongoing basis, the administration of an HR activity that would normally be performed in-house’ (4) Research has shown that 93% of HR departments outsourced at least some of their work (Greer, Youngblood, and Gray 1999; Gurchiek 2005) Although more contemporary research has found that many ongoing outsourcing contacts are discontinued with either the selection of a different vendor or bringing the work backin-house, referred to as back sourcing (Whitten, Chakrabarty, and Wakefield 2010) Training and development is a HR functional area in which outsourcing is prevalent (Anderson 2008; Bassi, Cheney, and Van Buren 1997; Chiang, Chow, and Birtch 2010); yet, there are few studies related to outcomes of HRD outsourcing Training and development outsourcing has been viewed as an effective management strategy, especially in organizations operating in highly competitive international business environments Although evidence has suggested that the amount of training and development outsourcing may be increasing (Babcock 2004), there is considerable variation in how firms have utilized this HR practice (Csoko 1995) While some firms have achieved positive outcomes from outsourcing training, others report that they failed miserably (Baker 1996) Shih and Chiang (2011) recently concluded that scholars appear to hold differing opinions of the effects of training outsourcing Two competing perspectives dominate existing studies on training outsourcing The first view considers training outsourcing as a value-creating activity that may bring cost savings and operational flexibility (Cooke, Shen, and McBride 2005; Klass, Mc Clendon, and Gainey 2001), whereas the second perspective believes that some training activities should not be outsourced as it leads to declining innovation (Kotabe 1992) and reduced performance (Gilley and Rasheed 2000) Ongoing debate over the most appropriate perspective to explain training outsourcing and inconclusive research findings may result in ineffective outsourced HRD practices Research has focused on making the right outsourcing decisions (Sanders et al 2007) in order for the relationship between the organization and the vendor to continue Simmonds and Gibson (2008) provided a four-step outsourcing framework to ensure success by making the right decision in terms of what to outsource (prioritize), engaging the right providers (select) and putting measures in place to build (trust) and maintain a strong, trusting, effective relationship (monitor) The importance of trust has specifically gained much attention for maintaining and managing relationship between the suppliers Human Resource Development International 147 and the parent organization (Gainey and Klass 2005; Leimbach 2005) in order for the relationship to continue An additional and often overlooked area of debate in the literature relates to perceptions towards outsourced training Employers appear to have diverse and perhaps conflicting opinions regarding the benefits of in-house and outsourced training There is evidence that employers increasingly perceive that the use of outside service providers is more efficient and less expensive than maintaining a full-service in-house training and development facility and programme (Galanaki and Papalexandris 2007) Furthermore, some employers believe that outsourced training providers have knowledge and competencies that may not exist in-house (Galanaki and Papalexandris 2007) However, the perception of employees towards outsourced training has received little research From the employee perspective, training outsourcing may be viewed as a change in strategy and process for learning and development activities that may lead to considerable shifts in work processes, control and organizational design (Lever 2002), which in turn can potentially impact employee attitudes Stroh and Treehuboff (2003) suggested that outsourcing, regardless if considered successful or failed, can have a considerable influence on employee morale Some have argued that outsourcing does not nurture employee engagement with reduced feelings of belongingness towards the organization often the result (Punia and Sharma 2008) Therefore, if organizations want to utilize training outsourcing effectively, a greater understanding is needed on the potential influence it may have on employee attitudes Previous research has highlighted that individual workrelated outcomes are impacted by employee perceptions of HR practices, and these may differ significantly from managerial perceptions (Guest 1999; Huselid 1995) This study investigated the outcomes of training outsourcing as perceived by employees, and more specifically how training outsourcing may be related to employee attitudes, particularly organizational commitment Research on organizational commitment has attracted significant attention in the past five decades International interest in organizational commitment has increased as a result of globalization, greater cultural diversity in the workplace, and as more is understood of the relationship with various measures of performance (Kamarul and Raida 2003; Meyer et al 2012; Riketta 2002) A paradox unfolding within today’s global workforce has been noted in that organizations increasingly rely on committed employees while they simultaneously introduce many changes that have the potential to reduce commitment levels (Meyer and Parfyonova 2010) Examples of organizational change strategies are often related to reduced commitment, including downsizing, restructuring, mergers and acquisitions and outsourcing (Dierendonck and Jacobs 2012; Sverke, Hellgren, and Näswall 2002) The study of commitment aims to understand the multiple forms of psychological attachments or bonds that individuals develop in the workplace (Klein, Molloy, and Brinsfield 2012) Organizational commitment describes the various types of attachment or psychological links that a worker may feel towards their employing organization (van Knippenberg and Sleebos 2006) Perhaps the most significant advancement in the definition and conceptualization of organizational commitment resulted from the work of Meyer and Allen (1991) They viewed commitment as a ‘psychological state that characterizes the employee’s relationship with the organization, and its implications for the decision to continue membership with the organization’ (67) They delineated the construct into three dimensions of commitment: affective, continuance and normative; although several have raised questions with the theoretical uniqueness of continuance commitment resulting in numerous studies selecting only the affective and normative 148 S Chaudhuri and K.R Bartlett dimension as the prime indicators of organizational commitment (Kuvaas 2006; Solinger, van Olffen, and Roe 2008) Previous research has shown that several aspects of training activity including access to training, perceived benefits of training and organizational support for learning are related to organizational commitment (Ahmed and Bakar 2003; Bartlett 2001; Bartlett and Kang 2004; Bulut and Culha 2010; Ehrhardt et al 2011) Perceived organizational support towards training has also been found to be correlated positively with organizational commitment (Eisenberger, Fasolo, and Davis-LaMastro 1990; Shore and Wayne 1993) Furthermore, employees who received greater amounts of training relevant and useful to their jobs perceived the work environment to be more supportive (Narayan and Steele-Johnson 2007) Research conducted in international context has also supported a relationship with HRD and organizational commitment Joo and Shim (2010) reported in their study on Korean employees that organizational learning culture has a significant influence on employee commitment and their turnover intentions Given a growing concern on the desire for higher levels of employee commitment, a greater understanding is also needed on employees’ perceptions of training outsourcing and the potential relationship to organizational commitment that may exist between the frequency of participation in outsourced training, quality of outsourced training, usefulness and relevance of outsourced training, customization of outsourced training and supervisory support towards outsourced training Problem statement In the academic literature, training outsourcing has received little research attention with most previous studies primarily concentrated on broadly examining the organizational benefits and risks of HR outsourcing in general The few studies on training outsourcing have tended to focus on the relationship between firms and vendors (Gainey and Klass 2003, 2005) Since employees are always at the receiving end of outsourced training, it is noteworthy that the employee perspective on the impact of outsourcing on employment relations has usually been overlooked in existing studies (Kessler, Coyle-Shapiro, and Purcell 1999) While there is much rhetoric on the possible impact of training outsourcing on workplace attitudes (Shih and Chiang 2011), there is a lack of research that explores possible relationships between outsourced training and employee attitudes Some who advocate for training outsourcing highlight reduced costs, improved effectiveness and efficiency in training delivery and corresponding benefits to employee satisfaction and loyalty (Galanaki, Bourantas, and Papalexandris 2008) Conversely, others warn that training outsourcing undermines core values and control of HRD, resulting in reduced employee morale (Belcourt 2006; Cooke, Shen, and McBride 2005) This overall shortage of research and conflicting conclusion on the nature of the relationship of outsourcing training and workplace attitudes is problematic as organizations are confronted by divergent opinions and unsubstantiated claims on how employees perceive outsourcing of training activities Additionally, there is a very limited body of literature that looks into the organizational commitment of software professionals (Paul and Anantharaman 2004) This is concerning as the IT services sector is noted for high rates of turnover (Gupta 2001; Kuruvilla and Ranganathan 2010; Kuo et al 2010) At the same time outsourcing of training services within the IT sector is an organizational learning strategy often considered to provide employees with opportunities to upgrade their skills on a continuous basis in order to adapt and adopt new technology (Paul and Anantharaman 2004) The IT Human Resource Development International 149 industry and international firms that operate in this sector were therefore selected as an appropriate context to examine the possible relationship between outsourced training and employee commitment The knowledge gained from this exploratory study could prove useful for firms considering outsourcing of training functions and more specifically for those organizations already engaged in outsourcing training to better understand how employees perceive this practice Theoretical framework Transaction cost economics (Williamson 1996) and the resource-based view of the firm (Barney 1991) have traditionally been used as underlying theoretical perspectives to explain outsourcing (e.g Klass 2003; Klass, Mc Clendon, and Gainey 2001; Lever 2002) These theories have been most frequently used in prior research to explore the initial outsourcing decision (Klass, Mc Clendon, and Gainey 1999, 2001; Lepak, Bartol, and Gardner 2004) Transaction cost economics (Williamson 1996) conveys the idea whether services or goods should be made internally or procured from outside based on the relative costs of production and transaction, whereas resource-based view of the firm (Barney 1991) offers the perspective that in order to remain competitive, resources should be developed in-house However, given the focus of this research on the postdecision implantation and the relationship between perceptions of training outsourcing and organizational commitment, an alternative theoretical perspective was selected Social exchange theory (Blau 1964) and psychological contract theory (Rousseau 1990) are potentially more appropriate for examining employee attitudes in the context of a changed employment contract resulting from the implementation of an outsourcing HR strategy Many researchers have suggested that positive and beneficial actions by employers result in the establishment of high-quality mutual exchange relationships, which, in turn, obligate employees to reciprocate (Konovsky and Pugh 1994; Shore and Wayne 1993) Conversely, a shift in the terms of the employment relationship by the employer is likely to result in changed employee perceptions that may lead to a breach in the perceived reciprocal relationship (Robinson 1996) In the most general terms, training outsourcing means that an employer is hiring a third-party service provider or a vendor to deliver training activities that would normally be provided in-house (Cook 1999) If the training vendor provides excellent service, the employee may see this as an investment or improvement in the quality of the employment relationship Applying the lens of social exchange theory suggests that outsourced training may increase employees’ level of commitment towards an organization By contrast, if the vendor fails in meeting employee training expectations, the quality of the employment relationship may decline with associated levels of lower commitment One additional aspect of social exchange that might theoretically relate to employee commitment following training outsourcing occurs when the exchange relationship is perceived to no longer be balanced Tsui et al (1997) identified this situation occurring when high performance expectations are held by employers while they make minimal investments in their employees This may happen when firms hire specialized external trainers from outside organizations to provide quality and relevant training which employees perceive as an investment in their development with subsequent reciprocated higher levels of commitment In contrast, when firms use outside vendors for all types of training and fail to monitor the quality and relevance of outsourced training, employees may feel a reduced level of commitment towards their organization Moreover, the fact that training 150 S Chaudhuri and K.R Bartlett is outsourced may result in increased or decreased frequency of training events which may also influence levels of employee commitment Research questions and hypotheses The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of employee perceptions regarding outsourced training and the possible relationship with organizational commitment The focus of this study was on the employees who participated in outsourced training during the last one year The overarching research question was: ‘is there a relationship between outsourced training and employee organizational commitment?’ This was further refined into five research hypotheses Hypothesis development For the purpose of this study it was necessary to consider key aspects of HRD participation that were most likely related to employee organizational commitment The first variable was frequency of participation in outsourced training Participation in training events is only possible when employees perceive that adequate opportunities for training are available Previous studies have shown that higher levels of HRD participation have a strong to moderate relationship with different forms of commitment (Ahmed and Bakar 2003; Bartlett 2001; Newman, Thanacoody, and Hui 2011) Applying the lens of social exchange theory, it can be argued that availability of training can have considerable impact on employee commitment as it supports an organizational climate of development Higher levels of availability and participation in training are likely to produce higher levels of organizational commitment from employees Prior studies have measured availability of training by frequency of participation or number of training programmes attended (Bartlett 2001; Tharenou 1997) Companies provide or support participation in training to ensure that employees have the needed skills and knowledge to perform Previous research has consistently shown that employees view firm-sponsored learning as an investment (Backes-Gellner and Tuor 2010 ) with a range of workplace attitudes linked to the overall perceptions of organizational awareness, support and provision of needed training and development for the employees to perform their current job and enhance future career opportunities (Chambel and Sobral 2011) Based on existing literature and application of the reciprocal investment perspective embedded in social exchange theory, it was thought that positive relationships between outsourced training and affective and normative commitment would exist Consequently the following hypotheses were developed Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between frequency of participation in outsourced training and affective and normative commitment A wide variety of constructs related to training and development have been examined in studies that have explored links between HRD and organizational commitment (Ahmed and Bakar 2003; Bartlett 2001; Ehrhardt et al 2011; Newman, Thanacoody, and Hui 2011) Since the key construct of interest for this study was outsourced training, only those aspects of training most relevant to HRD provided by external vendors were examined Perceptions that employees may hold towards outsourced training were divided into four operational measures including perceptions of the quality of outsourced training, Human Resource Development International 151 usefulness and relevance of outsourced training, customization of outsourced training and supervisory support towards outsourced training Galanaki, Bourantas, and Papalexandris (2008) found that the quality of outsourced training was most affected by the overall availability of training services in the external market Shaw and Fairhurst (1997) reported that maintaining service quality in outsourced training was one of the greatest problems encountered by client firms Recent research found that the relationship between training and organizational commitment can be strengthened if employees perceive specific training activity as relevant and high quality in nature (Ehrhardt et al 2011) From an employee’s perspective, if the quality of training provided by the outsourced vendor is high, the employee could perceive this as an investment by the employer in securing the right vendor and, therefore, the employee could be more committed to the organization This leads to the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 2: There is a positive relationship between employee perceptions towards the quality of outsourced training and affective and normative commitment Previous studies have suggested that employees may have opposing views on the perceived usefulness and relevance of outsourced training (Cooke, Shen, and McBride 2005) One possible scenario that could result is when employees perceive training to be less relevant or useful if their organization is purchasing off-the-shelf training from external vendors as compared to in-house-designed and delivered training Alternatively, employees may perceive an external vendor as being able to provide the latest training materials and delivery options that exceed the perceived usefulness and relevance of in-house training Therefore, if the outsourced training is highly relevant and useful, employees may perceive this as an investment by the employer, and as a result they could be more committed to the organization This leads to the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 3: There is a positive relationship between employee perceptions towards usefulness and relevance of outsourced training and affective and normative commitment The third aspect of training examined in this study was employees’ perceptions towards customization of outsourced training Customization of training reflects the degree to which an external vendor makes an investment in time and money to deliver training to meet the unique needs of each individual firm (Gainey and Klass 2003) If training is adapted and individually tailored to meet the organization’s strategic learning needs and culture, employees may feel greater commitment and have more motivation to participate in training In contrast, organizations should be cautious of overrelying on ‘off-the-shelf’ training solutions that may offer cost advantages but could fail to meet the specific learning needs of the intended audience (Kaeter 1995; Sanders et al 2007) Paul and Anantharaman (2004) found that when customized learning and training opportunities were made available for employees, it created a sense of attachment towards the organization This leads to the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 4: There is a positive relationship between employee perceptions towards customization of outsourced training and affective and normative commitment The final aspect of training examined considered perceptions towards supervisory support for outsourced training Tracey and Tews (2005) defined supervisory support as the extent 152 S Chaudhuri and K.R Bartlett to which supervisors encouraged training participation, knowledge acquisition and at the same time provided ample recognition to employees involved in these activities Previous studies have shown supervisory support to be instrumental in fostering the transfer of newly acquired knowledge and learned skills to workplace (Kozlowski and Huts 1987; Nijman et al 2004) Supervisory support towards training has also been found to have significant relationships to a range of outcome variables (Noe and Wilk 1993) including employee satisfaction with supervisors, improved commitment and reduced turnover (Dawley, Andrews, and Bucklew 2008; Eisenberger, Fasolo, and Davis-LaMastro 1990) Outsourced training could be expensive for high-performing work environments in dynamic industries and jobs, such as those in IT where external training may offer access to cutting-edge knowledge on latest technologies and state-of-the-art HRD delivery options If the supervisor is invested and believes that outsourced training would enhance job performance and career advancement, they may actively encourage employees to attend training from external training providers This could enhance the commitment of employees who attend the training because of strong supportive supervisor and recognition that the best training may not be offered in-house This suggests that supervisory support could be an important feature for employee participation in outsourced training Therefore, the following hypothesis was examined Hypothesis 5: There is a positive relationship between employee perceptions towards supervisory support for outsourced training and affective and normative commitment Method and procedure This section provides a description of the research methods for this study with details on the sample, instrumentation and procedures for data analysis As training outsourcing was a key construct of interest in this study, the target population only included those organizations engaged in outsourcing at least some of their HRD training activities Previous research has identified that outsourced training activity occurs at higher levels in global firms, with the IT industry often noted as a heavy user of external training vendors (Lacity, Khan, and Willcocks 2009; Niosi and Tschang 2009) Therefore, the decision was made to limit this study to global IT firms actively engaged in training outsourcing Personal contacts were used to identify firms meeting the selection criteria and two organizations agreed to participate The first organization was a well-established firm and market leader in software consulting based in the United States, and the second organization was a relatively newer-established firm headquartered and operating primarily in India The US-based organization employed around 120,000 people worldwide, operated in 145 countries and had over 370,000 customers, including all 100 firms listed on the Fortune 100 The second organization was a software consulting firm based in India with approximately 1000 employees Established in 1998, the organization was well-known for core competencies in the areas of e-governance and energy sector IT systems integration Their major customers include the multinational and local firms, government agencies in both India and other nations, and non-governmental organizations operating throughout India and other developing nations Both firms reported a variety of experiences with outsourcing training Each firm encouraged supervisors to use appropriate training options, including active participation in learning provided by external training vendors for their direct reports The US organization in our sample heavily utilized training provided by international outsourced Human Resource Development International 153 training service firms, including many headquartered and operating in India The Indian organization in our sample also relied on outsourced training vendors, although all were from India The selection of firms using India to provide outsourced training reflects this country being recognized as a favoured outsourcing destination for organizations from across the world (Sharda and Chatterjee 2011) It is estimated that the outsourcing sector has contributed employment for 2.5 million in India with the outsourcing industry annually generating US$76 billion in revenue in recent years (NASSCOM 2011) After agreement to participate in the study was received, a senior HRD professional at each firm sent the electronic survey to those employees identified from internal HR records as having received training from an outsourced vendor in the last one year The HR professionals confirmed that employees were aware that the training was external to meet one of the requirements for the study Of approximately 724 employees contacted through email, a total of 246 completed, and usable surveys were received for a response rate of 33.9% The demographic variables indicated that the respondents were 67% male, 58% were between ages 25 and 34, and 39% had more than 10 years of total work experience In this sample, approximately 52.4% had a bachelor’s degree and 41.9% had a master’s degree as their highest level of education The majority (79.7%) of employees worked in a junior-level position with 17% in middle-level positions We did not find any significant country difference for our dependent variable organizational commitment between the employee groups This maybe the result of the unique characteristics of the sample population occupation with Prasad, Enns, and Ferratt (2007) suggesting that IT employees are generally considered to be a homogenous group globally Constantine (1995) noted that the IT, and specifically, software professionals’ occupational subculture can be stronger than any measure of national culture The unique and strong occupational culture for IT professional prompted Dafoulas and Macaulay (2001) to suggest that a ‘Russian programmer would be more similar to an American peer than to a Russian marketing manager’ (6) The findings of this study aligns with our research where we did not find any significant difference between the two groups in their commitment to respective organizations as their commitment to the occupation supersedes any country differences Measures The self-administered questionnaire used for this study included measures of training frequency along with previously developed scales In addition to demographic items the survey also gathered general training information including the number of outsourced training programmes attended All the training outsourcing items were measured on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from (strongly disagree) to (strongly agree), and the organizational commitment items were rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale with responses ranging from (strongly disagree) to (strongly agree) Galanaki, Bourantas, and Papalexandris’ (2008) three-item quality benefit from outsourced training scale was used to measure the quality of outsourced training The reliability measure of internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) from data in the original study was reported at 0.72 (Galanaki, Bourantas, and Papalexandris 2008) The reliability estimate from data in the current study produced a coefficient alpha of 0.62 While below the generally agreed upon lower limit of 0.70, it is above the suggested minimum reliabilities for exploratory research as suggested by Hair et al (1998) Perceptions regarding the usefulness and relevance of outsourced training were measured using six items from Narayan and Steele-Johnson’s (2007) 20-item training attitude scale An 154 S Chaudhuri and K.R Bartlett exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to test the factor structure of this sixitem subscale, and the results confirmed the suitability of a single factor The reliability estimate from data from the six-item scale was 0.90 Perceptions of the degree of customization of outsourced training were measured using three items from Gainey and Klass’ (2005) idiosyncratic training scale The reliability estimate for this scale was 0.73 Organizational support for outsourced training was measured using 10 items selected and slightly modified from the original 16-item scale Noe and Wilk (1993) perceived support from senior staff scale (α = 0.93) An EFA was conducted as no reliability data were available for this modified 10-item version of the scale, and the results confirmed the suitability of a single factor Organizational commitment was measured using the eight-item affective commitment subscale (ACS) and the six-item normative commitment subscale (NCS) from Meyer and Allen (1997) The reliability estimates from data for the affective and the normative domains were reported as 0.85 and 0.73, respectively, in the original study (Meyer and Allen 1997) and 0.90 and 0.75, respectively, in the current study Data analysis A three-stage hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to examine the effect of each training outsourcing variable on the dependent variable, organizational commitment When conducting the hierarchical regression, all variables were standardized and entered into the analysis in the order suggested by previous research In the first step the demographic variables, organization size (number of employees) and frequency of participation in company-provided training events were entered The frequency of participation in company-provided training events was controlled because of the previously established relationship with organizational commitment (Bartlett 2001) In the second step, supervisory support to outsourced training was entered initially as perceptions of organizational support are strongly related to organizational commitment (Whitener 2001) followed by relevance and usefulness of training It was predicted that customization and quality of outsourced training would account for additional variance over and above supervisory support and relevance and usefulness of outsourced training with these variables entered in steps and 4, respectively Results The means, standard deviations and bivariate correlations between all variables are presented in Table The outcome variables including both affective and normative commitment were negatively skewed; however, there was no sizeable skewness in the distribution of the outcome variables, and the values were well within the range Regression analysis revealed that the residual diagnostic plots were normally distributed for both affective and normative commitment Previous studies have not considered frequency of participation in outsourced training events and the possible relationship with organizational commitment The results showed a significant relationship between normative commitment and frequency of participation in outsourced training events (r = 0.14, p < 0.05), although no relationship with affective commitment was found Therefore, hypothesis was partially supported The quality of outsourced training was moderately correlated with affective (r = 0.24) and normative commitment (r = 0.19) at p