Although behavioral scientists and policymakers have long stressed the importance of more and better worker training, American establishments provide little formal training to their employees. Yet, curiously, little theory or research exists on what might influence the use of training practices. The purposes of this research were to develop a conceptual framework for understanding training utilization and to empirically investigate the framework's suggestions about the role of context in training utilization. Four hypotheses were derived and tested on data collected from 53 establishments. The results indicated that turnover; organization size, and technological complexity correlated with the use of formal training programs; the relationship between technological complexity and training utilization was the most robust. The article concludes with implications for research and practice.
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