Examining the Mediating Role of Person–Job Fit in the Relationship between Training and Performance: A Civil Servant Perspective

Abstract

In a dynamic environment, the nature of work tasks continues to change requiring employees to learn new knowledge and skills to perform their jobs effectively. Training is among the crucial strategies of an organization, which helps employees to acquire those necessary knowledge and skills to meet the challenges. The linkage between training and performance has been robustly studied in the literature suggesting that training is a major determinant of employees’ performance. Further, literature in the field of industrial/organizational psychology implies the effect of person–job fit on the relations between training and performance. The purpose of this study is to examine the degree of direct and indirect relationship between employee training (TR) and performance (PER), conceiving the mediating role of job fit (JF), as few studies have been reported in literature so far. The hypotheses were tested on a sample of 171 civil service officers by structural equation modelling technique using partial least square (PLS) approach to measure and test the proposed structural relationships. The results confirm that employee training and job fit are directly related with improvement in job performance. The results also demonstrate the significant mediating effect of job fit on employee performance. This article contributes to the existing body of literature by examining both the direct and indirect effect of employee training on job performance. Moreover, job fit is established to partially mediate the relationship between them. The findings of this study provide useful information for policymakers to improve employees’ job fit and their performance by means of employee training. The limitations to the study and directions for future research are discussed as well.