How do employees learn at work? Understanding informal learning from others in different sectors

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How do employees learn at work?
Understanding informal learning from others
in different sectors
Maike Gerken

How do employees learn at work?
Understanding informal learning from others
in different sectors
Maike Gerken

Copyright © Maike Gerken, Maastricht, 2016
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
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without the prior permission in writing from the author.
ISBN: 978 94 6159 566 9
Publisher: Datawyse, Universitaire Pers Maastricht
Layout: Birgit Blum, www.blum-unternehmenskommunikation.de
Cover design: Siona Benjamin, www.artsiona.com
How do employees learn at work?
Understanding informal learning from others
in different sectors
PROEFSCHRIFT
Ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor
aan de Universiteit Maastricht
op gezag van de rector magnificus
Prof. Dr. L.L.G. Soete
volgens besluit van het College van Decanen
in het openbaar te verdedigen
op woensdag 29 Juni 2016
om 10.00 uur
door
Maike Gerken

PROMOTER
Prof. Dr. M. S. R. Segers
COPROMOTER
Dr. S. A. J. Beausaert, Université Catholique du Louvain, Belgium
BEOORDELINGSCOMMISSIE
Prof. Dr. W. H. Gijselaers (voorzitter)
Prof. Dr. J. W. M. Kessels, Open University, the Netherlands
Prof. Dr. J. G. A. M. Lemmink
Dr. P. G. C. Van den Bossche, University of Antwerp, Belgium
SUMMARY
Organizations have turned to employee’s continuous professional development to increase the
responsiveness towards ongoing change and the ability to foster innovation. Especially, work-
place learning is an issue of emerging interest. In this context, informal learning in the workpla-
ce in contrast to formal learning has become a major component for acquiring and developing
knowledge and skills that are important in organizations to stay competitive and increase qua-
lity. However, the concept of informal learning has been difficult to explain as it is undecided in
which kind of informal learning behaviors employees engage in. As yet, researchers have tackled
this issue by noticing all possible informal learning behaviors and activities. This resulted in a
broad overview and scholars later categorized informal learning in either learning from oneself
such as reading literature or learning from others such as exchanging feedback with others.
This approach has limitations: using a broad categorization can lead to fallacies if the findings
are used to make clear statement on the possible effects of informal learning on professional
development.
The present dissertation builds on these efforts and responds to the limitations by focusing
on informal learning from others. The goal is to gain a refined understanding of the informal
learning from others behaviors employees engage in and how this contributes to their profes-
sional development. The concepts of employability and innovative work behavior were selected
as indicators for professional development as these constructs are recognized in literature to
be influenced by learning. More specifically, four empirical studies were set up to each make
an individual contribution to the goal by addressing the influence of specific informal learning
behaviors from others on employee’s employability and innovative work behavior. The contribu-
tion of study 1 in Chapter 2 lies in the further operationalization of concrete informal learning
behaviors based on prior research studies. This study compared the relation of informal learning
and formal learning on employees’ employability in the field of emergency medical services. The
findings revealed that two behaviors, creating opportunities to gather information and proactive
learning from others, positively related to employability. Next, the results showed that emplo-
yability is foremost related to informal learning and not to formal learning. Study 2 in Chapter 3
expanded the results of the first study in two directions. First, by further operationalizing the
concept of informal learning from others and looking at three specific behaviors that emerged
from the first study: acting upon feedback, information seeking, and help seeking. These behavi-
ors are also referred to in Chapter 4 and 5. Second, this empirical study took place in a different
sector, namely higher education and studied the learning behavior of faculty staff. The results
of the second study showed that acting upon feedback from colleagues significantly positively
SUMMARY / 07

related to employability. In addition, informal learning from others had a stronger relation with
employability than formal learning.
In relation to the expectation of lifelong employability, employees are also asked to fulfill tasks
that lead to the development of new ideas and innovations. Study 3 (Chapter 4) examined the
relation between informal learning from others and innovative work behavior across employees
working in different sectors. The results revealed that two learning from others behaviors, that
is, acting upon feedback from colleagues and information seeking were significantly related to
employees’ innovative work behavior. Study 4 (Chapter 5) took a different perspective on in-
formal learning from others by identifying employees’ preferences for acting upon feedback, in-
formation seeking, and help seeking and its relationship with their background characteristics.
The results demonstrated that employees prefer certain behaviors over others depending on
job mobility and work experience. Accordingly, employees will engage in ways that best serve
their purpose and assist their career trajectory. In conclusion, this dissertation extends previ-
ous findings from literature leading to a more sophisticated understanding of the concept and
effects of informal learning from others in the workplace on both employability and innovative
work behavior.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A BIG THANK YOU
to all of you who
support me
open up my mind
give me opportunities to learn in practice
give me room to make mistakes and learn from them
get me out of my comfort zone where the magic happens
I can ask for feedback, help and information
took part in my research studies
are my partners in crime
are my travel buddies
&
eat my baked goods
08 / SUMMARY

Darin besteht das Wesen der Wissenschaft:
Zuerst denkt man an etwas, das wahr sein könnte.
Dann sieht man nach, ob es der Fall ist
und im allgemeinen ist es nicht der Fall.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
(1872 – 1970)

TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER 1
General introduction ...........................................................................................................15
CHAPTER 2
The influence of formal and informal learning on employability in the workplace:
A study in the emergency medical services ...................................................................... 33
CHAPTER 3
Working on the professional development of faculty staff in higher education:
Investigating the relationship between social informal learning activities
and employability ............................................................................................................... 59
CHAPTER 4
Informal learning from others at work as facilitator of employees’ innovative
work behavior ..................................................................................................................... 85
CHAPTER 5
Profiles of employees’ engagement in proactive learning from others and its
relation with their career trajectory ............................................................................... 105
CHAPTER 6
General discussion ............................................................................................................127
VALORIZATION ADDENDUM ........................................................................................ 143
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ..................................................................................................... 151
LIST OF PUBLICATIONS ................................................................................................. 155
ICO DISSERTATION SERIES ....................................................................................... 1 61
TABLE OF CONTENT / 13

Chapter 1
General Introduction

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Informal learning is a new hype in the workplace. A quick glimpse on LinkedIn and Twitter shows
us that informal learning appears to be a trendy theme within the human resource (HR) and hu-
man resource development (HRD) world. Charming cartoons and simple diagrams teach us that
the workplace is employees’ main place for learning. Not less than 70% is said to be learned on
the job without support or systematic involvement of an external expert (Cross, 2007). This is
particularly true for knowledge-intensive organizations where work is rapidly changing and in-
novative. In order to keep up with the changes and even anticipate on them, these work environ-
ments are characterized by a need for collaboration and interaction among employees and will
feature informal learning. This all sounds very promising and although organizations may have
an intuitively clear picture of what informal learning may be, the reality in fact is more complex.
The term informal learning was first introduced in 1950 by Malcolm Knowles in his work on infor-
mal adult education (Watkins & Marsick, 1992). Since that time, many researchers have written
about informal learning, offering their unique perspective on the meaning of the term. The work
of Marsick and Watkins (2001) has led the research for over a decade. The authors state that,
informal learning is unique to the individual and control of learning rests primarily in the hand of
the learner. Generally speaking, informal learning is said to be characterized by a low degree of
planning and organization in terms of context, support, time and goals (Eraut, 2007; Noe, Tews,
& Marand, 2013). Informal learning opportunities are not restricted to a particular context, but
result from daily activities in which learning is not the primary goal (Marsick, 2009). Under the
umbrella term of informal learning, research categorizes informal learning as either individual
informal learning or informal learning from others (Noe et al., 2013). Individual informal learn-
ing includes learning from non-personal sources like professional literature and the internet.
Informal learning from others involves learning in a social context from personal sources like
colleagues, supervisors, and relevant others. However, prior empirical studies did not make a
distinction between these categories. A lot of studies operationalized informal learning either
as a whole range of behaviors and activities or measured it in a rather vague holistic way making
it difficult to discern whether the focus was on individual or social informal learning (Lohman,
2005, 2006). Recent studies indicated that to enhance their professional development em-
ployees rely more on social interaction with others than individual informal learning (Froehlich,
Beausaert, Segers, & Gerken, 2014; Kyndt, Dochy, & Nijs, 2009). Yet, research is lacking a clear
picture of the behaviors that employees engage in when talking about informal learning from
others and how this relates to employees professional development.
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT AND AIM
To support informal learning from others at work it is necessary to find out which specific learn-
ing behaviors occur at work. In the past, research on informal learning has focused on a broad
range of behaviors. Although general effects have been established, it is acknowledged that it
is difficult to study antecedents and effects of a phenomenon like informal learning when it is
not clear which specific learning behaviors is focused upon. In this respect, increasing attention
is now being paid to the social processes and activities in workplace learning. Literature states
that social interaction with colleagues and supervisors is the main source of learning at work
(Billett, 2004; Eraut, 2007). Nevertheless, in existing instruments measuring informal learning
at work, little attention has been given to the social dimension of informal learning (Richter,
Kunter, Klusmann, Lüdtke, & Baumert, 2011). As a result, the specific behaviors by which informal
learning from others takes place have not yet been well explained. This dissertation aims to fill
this research gap by increasing our understanding of specific learning behaviors related to infor-
mal learning from others. More specifically, we focus on feedback seeking behavior, help seeking
behavior, and information seeking behavior.
Employees need to not only update job specific skills but, to an increasing extent, have to pre-
pare themselves for future jobs, tasks, roles and many other new challenges in the workplace
(Mihail, 2008; Nauta, Vianen, Van der Heijden, Dam, & Willemsen, 2009). In this regard, employ-
ability and how Learning and Development departments can contribute, is high on the strategic
agenda of many organizations. Organizations are interested in supporting employees’ employ-
ability but also recognize the need to provide a workplace environment that encourages and
shapes various opportunities for informal learning. Despite this research evidence of the effects
of informal learning from others on employability is still scarce (Klink, Heijden, Boon, & Rooij,
2014; Van der Heijden, Boon, Van der Klink, & Meijs, 2009). Therefore, the purpose of this disser-
tation is to get a better understanding of informal learning from others and how it contributes to
employees’ employability. Employability refers to “the continuous fulfilling, acquiring or creating
of work through the optimal use of competencies” (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden 2006,
p. 435). Employability refers to five dimensions, which are occupational expertise, anticipa-
tion and optimization, personal flexibility, corporate sense, and balance (Van der Heijde & Van
der Heijden, 2006). Occupational expertise refers to having knowledge and skills for the cur-
rent job. Anticipation and optimization means taking an active role in reflecting on the current
developments in one’s field, and acting upon those developments. Personal flexibility means
passively adapting to changes related to the tasks and functions in the workplace. Employees
show corporate sense when they identify themselves with the corporate goals of an organiza-
tion and accept responsibilities. Balance is defined as the compromise between the employer’s
interests and the employee’s work, career, and private interests. For this dissertation, we were
interested in the expertise (occupational expertise) and adaptability of employees (anticipation
and optimization and personal flexibility) in the job. These competences are subject to learning
and the context and can most easily be influenced by Learning and Development departments
and the organization.
CHAPTER 1 / 1716 / CHAPTER 1

Related to the interest in employability, how to accelerate innovation in organizations has cap-
tured the interest of many organizations. It has been argued that for this acceleration to hap-
pen, investing in innovation has to be part of the behavior of each employee (Rogers, 2002;
Scott & Bruce, 1994). In this respect, the concept of innovative work behavior is referred to.
Innovative work behavior is defined as work activities that employees carry out in their work
context, either individually or in social interaction, in order to accomplish a set of interdepend-
ent innovation tasks (Janssen, 2000; Messmann & Mulder, 2012; Scott & Bruce, 1994). Four
dimensions of innovative work behavior can be distinguished: opportunity exploration, idea gen-
eration, idea promotion, and idea realization (Messmann & Mulder, 2012). Although it has been
argued that investing in Learning and Development is an essential lever for supporting employ-
ees’ innovative work behavior (Kessel, Hannemann-Weber, & Kratzer, 2012), to date, empirical
evidence is scarce. Therefore, in this dissertation, in addition to employability, we explore the
relation between undertaking informal learning from others and the extent to which employees
show innovative work behavior.
Finally, there is currently no answer to the question if employees’ have a preference for informa-
tion seeking, feedback seeking or help seeking behavior as the three discerned specific informal
learning from others behaviors. Depending on the work environment and the situation, employ-
ees might choose certain learning behaviors over others. In other words, what are the motives
that cultivate different preferences for informal learning from others behavior? The answer can
lead to a more refined understanding of how informal learning from others can be supported in
the workplace. For instance, human resource development practitioners could help employees to
be aware of their preferences for continuous learning.
In summary, in this dissertation we intend to contribute to the theoretical and empirical knowl-
edge of informal learning from others behaviors, more specifically feedback seeking, help seek-
ing and information seeking. The central research questions are:
1) What is the relationship between formal and informal learning from others on
employability in different work environments?
2) What is the relationship between informal learning from others on innovative work
behavior?
3) What are motives for engaging in informal learning from others?
In the next paragraphs, we begin by discussing informal learning from others, with particular
emphasis on key activities that govern informal learning from others behavior. We then turn
to an examination of the antecedents and consequences of informal learning from others. This
chapter concludes with the conceptual model researched in this dissertation and an outline of
the accompanying chapters.
1.3 THE CONCEPT OF INFORMAL LEARNING
Although the term informal learning was introduced in the midst of the 20th century (Watkins
& Marsick, 1992), research on informal learning was first conducted in the 1980s by analyzing
workplace learning and the development of competences (Conlon, 2004). Research on infor-
mal learning has blossomed in the past years (Berg & Chyung, 2008; Eraut, 2007; Jeon & Kim,
2012; Lohman, 2006; Marsick, 2009). Informal learning is often explained in contrast to formal
learning although scholars argue that they complement each other (Sawchuk, 2008; Svensson,
Ellström, & Åberg, 2004). Formal learning is defined as learning that is institutional, structured
and planned (Choi & Jacobs, 2011; Marsick & Volpe, 1999), for instance the learning that takes
place in trainings or seminars. Informal learning occurs during daily work activities, is predom-
inantly unstructured and mostly occurs spontaneous (Cunningham & Hillier, 2013; Marsick &
Volpe, 1999). Until now, most research on informal learning has been bottom-up; researchers
asked participants about particular informal learning behaviors and then developed theory to
describe and explain it (Lohman, 2006). As a consequence, there is no common definition of the
concept of informal learning. Accordingly, each definition is distinct from one another and high-
lights a certain aspect of the umbrella term of informal learning. For example, informal learning
is defined by Mulder (2013, p.52) as “cognitive and physical learning activities (that lead to
cognitive activities) that can be deliberate or reactive, and that lead to competences but not
to formal qualification”. Hoekstra et al. (2009) state that informal learning “refers to learn-
ing in the workplace where systematic support of learning, such as professional development
trajectories, is absent” (p. 663). According to Noe et al. (2013) informal learning is defined as
“learner initiated, occurs on as-needed basis, is motivated by intent to develop, involves action
and reflection, and does not occur in a formal classroom setting.” (p. 3). The authors draw a
distinction between individual informal learning and social informal learning from others. Indi-
vidual informal learning behaviors involve learning from non-personal sources such as reading
print and online material and seeking information to stay informed about new developments. So-
cial informal learning includes learning from others such as colleagues, clients and supervisors.
Employees especially benefit from social interactions with colleagues, supervisors or relevant
others compared to individual informal learning (Jeon & Kim, 2012; Marsick, 2009). Recent stud-
ies indicated that interaction with others at work forms one of the most significant sources of
learning compared to individual learning behaviors such as searching in the internet or reading
books (Billett, 2004; Kyndt et al., 2009; Lohman, 2006). Conlon (2004) summarized that em-
ployees make use of informal learning from others “to obtain help, information or support, learn
from alternative viewpoints, gain ability to give greater feedback, consider alternative ways to
think and behave (planned or unplanned), reflect on processes to assess learning experience
outcomes, and to make choices on where to focus their attention” (p. 287). Overall, although
there is some evidence on the more general nature, antecedents, and consequences of informal
learning from others, less is known about specific informal learning from others behaviors and
their effects on professional development. This calls for a more systematic attention toward the
particular behaviors employees engage in.
CHAPTER 1 / 1918 / CHAPTER 1

1.3.1 ACTIVITIES THAT GOVERN INFORMAL LEARNING FROM OTHERS BEHAVIOR
Researchers studying informal learning have begun to identify the activities in which employees
shape their social interactions with others (Boud & Middleton, 2003; Froehlich et al., 2014;
Kwakman, 2003; Meirink, Meijer, & Verloop, 2007). Throughout the literature attention has been
given to the most common activities employees engage in (Cheetham & Chivers, 2001; Lohman,
2009) including conversations and discussions with each other. This means that employees
who work together, share ideas, and request or give advice (Hodkinson & Hodkinson, 2005;
Tynjälä, 2008). In particular, three key activities have been identified: proactive engagement in
feedback from others, sharing knowledge and information with others as well as seeking advice
(Ashford, 1986; Bamberger, 2009; Kyndt et al., 2009). This section focuses on these particular
activities.
In the feedback literature, researchers showed that employees proactively seek and use feed-
back (Ashford, 2003). Feedback refers to an activity that employees undertake to obtain infor-
mation about their performance and evaluations (Ashford, Blatt, & VandeWalle, 2003; Ashford &
Cummings, 1983). The review by Ashford et al. (2003) suggests that feedback allows employees
to assess how they are doing at achieving goals and how others perceive and evaluate their be-
havior. Feedback seeking typically includes informal methods of assessments such as questions
posed to supervisors, peers, and subordinates. Employees often make conscious choices to ask
others about a specific task or general feedback of their current performance (Shute, 2008).
Feedback seeking is a process that involves the search for feedback, interpret it and then use
the feedback afterwards. Using or acting upon feedback is an important aspect as it allows em-
ployees to correct their behavior and learn from it (Ashford, Blatt, & VandeWalle, 2003; Steel-
man, Levy, & Snell, 2004). Particular the aspect of acting upon feedback is crucial for learning.
Feedback is evaluative and it is not always obvious if the employee will subsequently act upon
it unlike seeking information or help. Seeking and acting upon feedback is intended to have an
effect. Evidence shows that acting upon feedback is positively related to the career development
of the employees (Anseel, Beatty, Shen, Lievens, & Sackett, 2015; Atwater & Brett, 2005; Smith-
er, London, & Reilly, 2005).
Information seeking is defined as “deliberate, conscious efforts” for obtaining knowledge (Miller
& Jablin, 1991; p. 102). Information seeking refers to the proactive behavior of an individual to
compensate for a lack of information (Lee, 1997; Morrison, 2002). Employees can seek specific
information on how to complete a task or general information about the organization’s mission.
Employees seek information from a variety of sources (Morrison, 1993). For instance, employees
seek information from employees who they consider experts in a specific subject. Also, employ-
ees seek information from employees whom they have close social ties with or are physically
close located to (Borgatti & Cross, 2003). Furthermore, studies show that employees seek dif-
ferent types of information from different types of co-workers (Morrison, 2002). Employees are
more likely to pursue information about how to execute a job task from their supervisor and are
more likely to seek work related social information from peers (Miller & Jablin, 1991).
Help seeking is a proactive behavior through asking others for their assistance, support or ad-
vice (Hofmann, Lei, & Grant, 2009; Van der Rijt et al., 2013). Like feedback and information
seeking, help seeking is a proactive activity performed to expand resources like knowledge (Lee,
1997). Yet, it is distinct because help seeking results from the encounter of a specific problem
whereas information and feedback seeking are also relevant in the absence of an explicit prob-
lem (Lee 1997). Employees in need of help define their problem, and proactively seek for those in-
dividuals in their work environment that have the resources to support them to find a solution to
their problem. Lee (1997) showed that employees mainly seek help from peers. More specifical-
ly, employees seek help from colleagues that exhibit effective problem solving capabilities and
from colleagues they consider experts in the area related to their problems (Hofmann et al.,
2009; Lee, 1997).
1.4 ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF INFORMAL LEARNING FROM OTHERS
In this dissertation, we have been addressing specific antecedents and consequences of informal
learning from others. In this section, we will introduce these antecedents and consequences.
1.4.1 ANTECEDENTS: JOB MOBILITY AND WORK EXPERIENCE
Since lifetime employment has changed, employees become responsible for their own career
(Mihail, 2008). This asks for proactive behavior in the workplace. Rather than reacting, proac-
tive employees are aware and prepared for (future) challenges (Crant, 2000). Due to changes
throughout their career employees seek out learning and development opportunities and en-
gage in learning activities that expand their knowledge and skills (Boud & Middleton, 2003;
Sonnentag, 2003). Moreover, prior research suggested that employees do not react to tasks as
structured by supervisors, but also negotiate changes and actively change and expand tasks and
their roles (Ashford & Black, 1996; Saks & Ashforth, 1996) which asks for engaging in learning
activities. In addition, when changing jobs, functions and/or organizations, employees need to
integrate their work experience into their career plans (Mihail, 2008) as well as update knowl-
edge and skills in order to perform new tasks and skills. Given the dynamics in careers and their
trigger for engaging in learning, in this dissertation we seek to investigate the influence of job
mobility and work experience on informal learning from others. More concretely, in the studies
reported in this dissertation, we are interested in the influence of the number of job functions
of the respondents, the number of organizations they have been affiliated at and their overall
number of years work experience. Chapter 5 specifically examines the influence of work expe-
rience and job mobility on employees’ preferences for information seeking, feedback seeking or
help seeking behavior.
CHAPTER 1 / 2120 / CHAPTER 1

1.4.2 CONSEQUENCES: EMPLOYABILITY AND INNOVATIVE WORK BEHAVIOR
As stated in the introduction, organizations need experts who can easily adapt to the constantly
changing environment. In other words, employees need to be highly employable (Van der Heijde
& Van der Heijden, 2006). Employability refers to the possession of the following competences:
occupational expertise, anticipation and optimization and flexibility. Although limited, former
research has been indicating the role of formal and informal learning in supporting employees’
employability (Eraut, 2004; Van der Heijden et al., 2009). Moreover, a few studies suggest the
power of learning from others for employability (Froehlich, Beausaert, Segers, & Gerken, 2014;
Klink, Heijden, Boon, & Rooij, 2014). Chapter 2 and chapter 3 both build further on these studies.
In two different sectors we investigate the relation between employees’ informal and formal
learning and their employability. Chapter 2 looks at employees working in the emergency medical
services. Chapter 3 tests the relationship among faculty staff at a university.
Related to the expectation of lifelong employability, employees are expected to be innovative
and to come up with new ideas and strategies about products and processes. Limited research
has been conducted that explores which informal learning from others behaviors contribute to
employees’ innovative work behavior. The study in chapter 4 researches how the acting upon
feedback, seeking of help, and seeking of information relate to employees’ innovative work be-
havior in organizations. Analyses of data collected in different knowledge-intensive organiza-
tions are used to illustrate the relationship between informal learning from others and innova-
tive work behavior.
1.5 OUTLINE OF THE DISSERTATION
Figure 1.1 Overview of the studies
Figure 1.1 summarizes the research model of this dissertation and provides an overview of the
focus of the different studies. More precisely, in the first study in Chapter 2 we started with
an instrument measuring a variety of informal learning behaviors based on Kyndt et al. (2009).
This study outlines the relation between formal learning, informal learning from others and
employees’ employability in the emergency medical services. Based on the results of the first
study we focus systematically on three informal learning from others behaviors in Chapter 3, 4
and 5: feedback seeking, help seeking, and information seeking. Study 2 in Chapter 3 presents
a study on formal and informal learning from others and their relationship with employability
among faculty staff. In Chapter 4 we examine the relation between informal learning from others
and innovative work behavior among employees in different contexts. In Chapter 5 we look at
informal learning from others during the career trajectory. Employees will engage in ways that
best serve their purpose and assist their career trajectory. In this study we attempt to map em-
ployees’ preferences of informal learning behaviors from others thereby taking into account the
influence of job mobility and work experience. We identified learning profiles of employees and
looked at their relationship with their career trajectory. Chapter 6 provides a general discussion
of the results presented in Chapters two to five. This is followed by the valorization addendum.
Please note
In this dissertation, the term informal learning from others is used interchangeably with the
term social informal learning. Both terms refer to learning from others through social interac-
tions. Moreover, feedback seeking, help seeking, and information seeking are behaviors that
imply different activities such as asking for feedback, help or information, interpreting it and
dealing with it.
This dissertation is a collection of closely related studies. Chapter two to five present these
studies. Since every study is written to be read on its own, repetition and overlap between the
chapters is inevitable.
CHAPTER 1 / 2322 / CHAPTER 1
Background
characteristics
and career
trajectory
Formal learning
Informal learning
from others
Employability
Innovative work
behavior
Chapter 2, 3
Chapter 5 Chapter 4

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Chapter 2
The influence of formal and informal learning
on employability in the workplace:
A study in the emergency medical services
In revision as:
Gerken, M., Beausaert, S.A.J., & Segers, M.S.R. (resubmitted).
The influence of formal and informal learning on employability in the workplace:
A study in the emergency medical services. Human Resource Development Quarterly.

CHAPTER 2 / 3534 / CHAPTER 2
ABSTRACT
Although formal learning has received a lot of attention as a way to support professional devel-
opment, recent research suggests that informal learning might be more important. This paper
seeks to investigate the predictive role of formal and informal learning towards professionals’
employability. The concept of employability comprises three dimensions: occupational expertise,
anticipation and optimization, and personal flexibility. Informal learning refers to using feedback,
creating opportunities to gather information, active engagement in learning opportunities and
proactive learning from others. Quantitative data gathered among 121 professionals in an or-
ganization that offers emergency medical services were analyzed using correlation analyses and
hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Results revealed that two informal learning behaviors,
creating opportunities to gather information and proactive learning from others, affect the di-
mension anticipation and optimization. This suggests that these behaviors support employees
to better prepare for and anticipate to future changes. Next, it was found that following formal
learning programs relate to personal flexibility indicating that it helps employees to easily adapt
to changes in the workplace. Moreover, informal learning had a stronger influence than formal
learning on professionals’ employability. The findings highlight the importance of supporting
not only formal, but also informal learning in the workplace to keep employees employable.
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Today, lifelong learning in the workplace has become a necessity for individuals in organiza-
tions. The potential of an organization to perform optimally and compete in a changing environ-
ment depends on employees’ capability to develop (De Vos, De Hauw, & Van der Heijden, 2011;
Nauta, Vianen, Van der Heijden, Dam, & Willemsen, 2009). Organizations ask for highly flexible
professionals who are skilled in performing various tasks and roles. Consequently employees are
confronted with maintaining their expertise and their capability to develop. In this respect, the
concept of employability has received increasing attention. Employability is defined as “the con-
tinuous fulfilling, acquiring or creating of work through the optimal use of competencies” (Van
der Heijde & Van der Heijden 2006, p. 435). It implies that professionals are able to deal with the
changing needs in the workplace and continuously develop new expertise and skills. When em-
ployability is crucial, how can organizations support employees to develop their employability?
To stay competitive and increase quality, organizations and specifically human resource devel-
opment (HRD) practitioners use many forms of employee development to ensure continuous
professional development (Ellström, 2001; Noe, Clarke, & Klein, 2014). The present study we will
focus on formal and informal learning. Formal learning is accomplished in trainings, workshops,
seminars or formal courses and is usually scheduled (Eraut, 2000). This view emphasizes that
employees update their knowledge and skills in full- or half-day activities outside the workplace
context in which teachers provide information that can be applied in the workplace (Svensson,
Ellström, & Åberg, 2004). Previous research has been looking into the relation between formal
learning and employability (Brown, Hesketh, & Williams, 2003; Thijssen et al., 2008; Van der
Heijden, Boon, Van der Klink, & Meijs, 2009). The results show that the revenue and expenses
of formal learning programs in terms of competence development is limited in the long term
(Eraut, 2004; Marsick, 2006). At the same time, research revealed that the majority of learning
in organizations does not occur in formalized programs (Flynn, Eddy, & Tannenbaum, 2006; Gar-
rick, 1998; Tannenbaum, 1997). For example, an early study by Tannenbaum (1997) found that
employees allocated only 10% of their professional development to formal learning compared
to informal learning from sources such as their supervisor and colleagues. Informal learning is
defined as “learner initiated, occurs on as-needed basis, is motivated by intent to develop, in-
volves action and reflection, and does not occur in a formal classroom setting.” (Noe, Tews, and
Marand, 2013, p. 3). Informal learning mainly takes place during daily working activities (Doorn-
bos, Simons, & Denessen, 2008; Eraut, 2004; Marsick, Volpe, & Watkins, 1999; Tannenbaum,
Beard, Laurel, & Salas, 2010) and includes a wide range of learning behaviors and activities
(see for example, Lohman, 2005). More specifically, individual informal learning behavior can be
discerned from social informal learning behavior (Eraut, 2004). In this respect Noe et al. (2013)
refer to learning from non-interpersonal sources such as reading professional literature and
using the Internet as individual informal learning and learning from others as informal learning
in social interaction. For example, sharing information at a conference, dropping by the office to
seek assistance from a colleague, and using the feedback from a supervisor to improve a certain
task, are all activities that illustrate opportunities to learn from others (Crommelinck & Anseel,
2013; Van der Rijt et al., 2012).

CHAPTER 2 / 3736 / CHAPTER 2
Although enhancing employability is high on the agenda of organizations and a well-studied
topic by scholars, only a few studies measured the relationship between informal learning and
employability (e.g. Van der Heijden et al., 2009). In this study, we extend literature by empirically
investigating informal learning in the workplace. The present study seeks to explore how for-
mal and informal learning relate to employees’ employability in the emergency medical services.
2.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In this section, we will first explain the concepts of employability and formal and informal learn-
ing. Next, we make the relationships between the three explicit before arriving at our hypotheses.
2.2.1 THE CONCEPT OF EMPLOYABILITY
The idea of lifetime employment has been largely replaced by an idea of lifelong learning and
lifetime employability. The concept has been defined in a variety of ways (Carbery & Garavan,
2005; Clarke, 2008) from different perspectives (Fugate, Kinicki, & Ashforth, 2004; Grip, Loo,
& Sanders, 2004; De Cuyper, Bernhard-Oettel, Berntson, De Witte, & Alarco, 2008; Thijssen et
al., 2008). Given the change in human resource perspective from job-based human resource
management (HRM) to competence-based HRM also has influenced the conceptualization of
employability. In this respect, the work of Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden (2006) is crucial.
Employability consists of domain-specific occupational expertise and four generic competences:
anticipation and optimization, personal flexibility, corporate sense and balance (Van der Heijde
& Van der Heijden, 2006). Occupational expertise means having the knowledge and skills to be
able to function in the current job. Anticipation and optimization refers to taking an active role
in preparing for future changes, the ability to reflect on developments in the field and under-
standing the requirements for its own professional development. Personal flexibility refers to
the capacity to adapt to changes related to one’s tasks and function. Corporate sense means
identifying with the corporate goals of an organization and accepting collective responsibilities
by participating in work groups. Balance is defined as the compromise between the employer’s
interests and the employees’ work, career and private interests (Van der Heijde & Van der Hei-
jden, 2006). The latter two components of employability (corporate sense and balance) are less
subject to HRD policies assuming that learning plays a minor role here. In addition, research em-
phasizes the importance of occupational expertise as a mandatory component of employability
as well as being able to adapt to changes in the workplace and being flexible on the personal
career level and for the organization itself (Fugate, Kinicki, & Ashforth, 2004; Nauta et al., 2009;
Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006). We therefore focus on the first three dimensions (occu-
pational expertise, anticipation and optimization and personal flexibility) in this study. Because
employability depends on employees initiative to actively identify opportunities and anticipate
and deal with problems (Grant, Parker, & Collins, 2009; Kim et al. 2009), research suggests
that further development of employability can only be enhanced if professionals are provided
with important learning experiences in the workplace and frequent opportunities to extend their
capabilities (Murdoch-Eaton & Whittle, 2012; Van der Heijden & Bakker, 2011).
2.2.2 FORMAL AND INFORMAL LEARNING
Traditionally, HRD professionals have relied upon and researchers focused on learning behaviors
that happen in formal learning and development programs (Choi & Jacobs, 2011; Govaerts &
Dochy, 2014; Panagiotakopoulos, 2011). Based on insights from research on deliberate practice,
it has been argued that employees improve performance through specific goals and repetition of
practicing tasks to increase knowledge and skills (Ericsson, 2006). This is done through formal
learning programs in which trainers structure activities and disseminate information to improve
performance (Eraut, 2004). Typically, the learning process is specified on forehand and struc-
tured in terms of the context, support and learning objectives. However, the majority of what
professionals learn is not planned in the way training and development programs convey knowl-
edge (Tannenbaum, 2001). The dynamics of the workplace pose challenges for employees to up-
date their knowledge and skills by attending formally organized learning programs only (Tannen-
baum et al., 2010). Recent research revealed that employees’ development was mostly guided
by practical experience rather than deliberate practice (Van de Wiel, Van den Bossche, Janssen,
& Jossberger, 2011). Instead employees learned most from their daily experiences and through
consulting relevant others in the workplace. The results suggest that more emphasis should be
put on learning that is integrated in the daily work. This informal learning happens spontaneous
at the employee’s own initiative and preferences (Cheetham & Chivers, 2001; Ellinger, 2005;
Kyndt & Baert, 2013; Malcolm, Hodkinson, & Colley, 2003). According to Noe, et al. (2013) in-
formal learning can be distinguished between individual informal learning and social informal
learning from others. Individual informal learning involves learning from non-personal sources
such as reading print and online material and seeking information to stay informed about new
developments. Social informal learning include learning from others such as peers, colleagues,
clients and supervisors (Kyndt et al., 2009) and has been operationalized in different concrete
learning activities. Following Kyndt et al. (2009) employees should be supported to engage in
feedback from others, sharing knowledge and information with others as well as seeking advice.
Prior research found a link between informal learning and job performance (Van der Rijt, Van den
Bossche, & Segers, 2013), career development (Van der Sluis & Poell, 2003) or professional de-
velopment (Kwakman, 2003; Lohman, 2005). Yet, to date, little research has been examined the
ways in which formal and informal learning influences employees’ employability.
2.2.3 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FORMAL LEARNING AND EMPLOYABILITY
Research on formal learning especially looked into the effect of formal learning on employability.
A study by Sanders and de Grip (2004) among low-skilled workers shows that formal learning
in terms of participation in courses has a positive influence on employability. In this study, em-
ployability is operationalized as external and internal employability. External employability refers

CHAPTER 2 / 3938 / CHAPTER 2
to the ability to take a job in a different company. Internal employability means either firm-in-
ternal employability where employees change jobs within the company or job-match employa-
bility where employees stay in their job within the company. Formal learning had specifically a
positive effect on employees’ internal employability (Sanders & Grip, 2004). Related evidence
comes from a study by Groot and van den Brink (2000). The authors show that formal learning
in terms of the number of on-the-job training courses relates to employability. They measure
employability in two ways: the extent to which employees can be assigned to other jobs with-
in the firm and by the way small problems are solved. In the same vein, Van der Heijden et al.
(2009) find a positive relationship between formal job-related training, operationalized as the
number of days participants attended training programs and three dimensions of employability:
occupational expertise, anticipation and optimization, and corporate sense. However, a recent
study by Froehlich, Beausaert, Segers, and Gerken (2014), building on the theoretical framework
of Van der Heijden et al (2009) reveals that the hours spent on formal learning merely affects
the employability dimension anticipation and optimization. In sum, formal learning contributes
to employability. Therefore, we predict:
Hypothesis 1: Formal learning is positively related to employees’ employability.
2.2.4 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INFORMAL LEARNING AND EMPLOYABILITY
Only a few studies have linked informal learning and employability. In a study among non-aca-
demic staff, Van der Heijden et al. (2009) tested how informal learning influenced employability.
The authors measured informal learning in terms of networking inside and outside the univer-
sity. A positive relation was found between networking inside the university and occupational
expertise, personal flexibility, corporate sense and balance (Van der Heijden et al., 2009). Addi-
tionally, networking outside the university predicted anticipation and optimization. Two other
dimensions of employability, corporate sense and balance, were predicted by the communication
with the supervisor. Froehlich et al. (2014) show that different forms of learning from others,
i.e. feedback seeking, information seeking and help seeking, are related to three dimensions
of employability: occupational expertise, anticipation and optimization, and personal flexibility.
Evidence from a related line of research reveals the effect of informal learning on profession-
al development. Van de Wiel et al. (2011) report in their study that informal learning is very
much embedded in the clinical workplace of physicians. Participants in the study indicate to
learn most from discussing patient cases with their colleagues. Especially advice seeking and
feedback seeking are valued for professional development. Similarly, Van der Rijt, Van den Bos-
sche, and Segers (2013) relate feedback seeking to professional development. They find that the
quality of feedback has a bigger impact on perceived professional development among young
employees than the frequency of feedback seeking. Based on these insights we formulate the
following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: Informal learning is positively related to employees’ employability.
We propose that informal learning has a higher influence on employability than formal learn-
ing. Several studies point out that informal learning is expected to contribute to professional
development (Eraut, 2004; Lohman, 2005; Schulz & Stamov Roßnagel, 2010). Likewise, most
learning in organizations does not occur in formalized learning programs (Flynn et al., 2006; Tan-
nenbaum, 1997). Two of the research studies mentioned above indicate that informal learning
has a bigger impact on employability compared to formal learning (Froehlich et al., 2014; Van der
Heijden et al., 2009). Therefore, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 3: Informal learning will have a stronger influence on employability
than formal learning.
2.3 METHOD
2.3.1 RESEARCH SETTING
The research setting for this study was an organization in the emergency medical services in
the Netherlands. The organization provides acute aid and medical assistance in a pre-hospital
setting. Employees are trained medical professionals that operate in a fast-paced environment
characterized by continuous change. This change is fueled by new insights from acute medical
care, the integration of new technologies and the variety of situations employees must deal with
such as car accidents or incidents of heart attack. In this setting, HRD practitioners currently
offer formal learning programs in the form of trainings, courses and workshops. These formal
programs are a mandatory part of employee’s professional development to maintain certifica-
tion. At the same time, formal learning creates challenges for the rapid changes and to keep up
with all the minor and major problems that employees encounter in their daily job. Accordingly,
informal learning might play a role for continuous professional development. Thus, the emergen-
cy medical services represent a natural setting to test our hypothesis about the impact of formal
and informal learning on employee’s employability.
2.3.2 PROCEDURE AND PARTICIPANTS
The organization was contacted and invited to participate in the research. After an introductory
meeting, a survey was set up and adapted to the specific setting of the organization in cooper-
ation with a HRD practitioner of the organization. The survey was distributed by HRD via email
among all three hundred employees, with a link to the survey. To increase the response rate, all
employees received one reminder after two weeks. The final sample consisted of N = 121 partic-
ipants (response rate 40%), of which 32 were female (26%) and 89 were male (74%). The mean
age was 43.43 years (SD = 8.31). The majority of participants was married (80%) and had chil-
dren at home (72%). On average, participants had 10.52 years (SD = 7.29) of working experience
in the organization and worked for 9.47 years (SD = 6.71) in their current function.

CHAPTER 2 / 4140 / CHAPTER 2
2.3.3 MEASURES
The survey consisted of four parts measuring formal learning, informal learning, employability
and control variables. Table 2.1 gives an overview of the scales used in the survey. In line with
previous research (e.g. Sanders & de Grip, 2004; Gerken, Beausaert, & Segers, 2015) formal
learning was measured by giving participants a list of formal learning activities, i.e. participa-
tion in courses, trainings, symposia, and seminars that are offered by the organization. Partic-
ipants indicated how many hours they spent on these learning activities during the last year.
Informal learning was assessed using an adapted version of the informal learning questionnaire
developed by Kyndt et al. (2009). We modified the questionnaire to capture the actual learning
behavior in the workplace instead of conditions for learning. All items were rated on a 5-point
Likert scale. Because the questionnaire was adapted, an exploratory factor analysis was per-
formed to validate the transformed questionnaire (Gerbing & Hamilton, 1996). The Kaiser-Meyer-
Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (KMO = 0.84) and Bartlett’s Test (p = .000) indicated
that the data set was appropriate for further analysis. Suppressing factor loadings lower than
0.40, a principal component analysis with direct oblimin rotation, yielded a solution with 5 fac-
tors and a number of cross-loading items. Cross-loadings were eliminated and resulted in the
elimination of one factor. A four-factor solution was obtained, each with an eigenvalue greater
than 1.00 accounting for 48.90% of the variance (see also appendix). The final questionnaire
contained 23 items. The categories include: using feedback, creating opportunities to gather
information from others, active engagement in learning opportunities, and proactive learning
from others.
Employability was measured with a questionnaire developed by Van der Heijde and Van der Hei-
jden (2006). We used three dimensions for our survey measuring occupational expertise, i.e.
developing the expertise necessary to adequately perform the various tasks in a job; anticipa-
tion and optimization, i.e. preparing for and adapting to future changes; and personal flexibility,
i.e. having the capacity to easily adapt to changes in the labor market. All 31 items were an-
swered on a 6-point Likert scale. A confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the structure in our
sample: Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) =.067, Comparative Fit Index (CFI)
= .97, Non-normed Fit Index (NNFI) = .96 and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR)
=.077 (Hu & Bentler, 1999).
Control variables. Based on previous research, we selected age, gender, number of years work-
ing in the organization, and number of years working in current function as control variables
for this study. We asked for chronological age, and how many years participants worked for the
organization and in their present function. Gender was coded with woman as 0 and man as 1.
Table 2.1 Overview of the Scales used in the Survey
SCALE ITEMS SAMPLE ITEM α
Using feedback 6 Feedback from my colleagues
motivates me to act
0.90
Creating
opportunities to
gather information
from others
5 I meet employees from other
organizations by participating in
symposia, conferences, work-
shops, and lectures
0.78
Active engagement
in learning
opportunities
6 I participate in project teams
composed of employees from
different departments
0.77
Proactive learning
from others
6 When I need help, tips or advice, I
ask my colleagues or members of
the management team
0.80
Occupational
expertise
15 I consider myself competent to
engage in in-depth, specialist
discussions in my job domain
0.93
Anticipation &
Optimization
8 I take responsibility for main-
taining my labor market value
0.82
Personal flexibility 8 How easily would you say you can
adapt to changes in your work-
place?
0.70

CHAPTER 2 / 4342 / CHAPTER 2
2.4 DATA ANALYSIS
Data were analyzed by first doing preliminary analyses (means, standard deviations, correla-
tions) to explore the relationships between informal learning, formal learning and employability.
Next, we used a series of separate hierarchical regression analyses to examine the effect of for-
mal learning and informal learning behavior on three dimension of employability thereby includ-
ing the control variables. The first hierarchical regression analysis focused on formal learning
and employability to test hypothesis 1. The following hierarchical regression analysis tested the
predictive value of the four informal learning activities separately (i.e. using feedback, creating
opportunities to gather information from others, active engagement in learning opportunities,
and proactive learning from others) on employability to test hypothesis 2. Finally, hierarchical
regression analyses were conducted to test hypothesis 3, which states that informal learning
has a stronger influence than formal learning on occupational expertise, anticipation and optimi-
zation and personal flexibility. The control variables were entered in step 1 followed by informal
learning in step 2 and formal learning in step 3 to analyze how much variance is explained by the
different independent variables.
2.5 RESULTS
The descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) for all variables in this study are displayed
in Table 2.2. The mean score for formal learning indicates that participants overall spent 19.01
hours on training activities. The standard deviation (SD = 8.28) shows that the amount of hours
spent on formal learning differed among participants. The findings regarding informal learning
reveal that participants report to engage to a slightly lesser extent in active engagement in
learning opportunities and proactive learning from others in comparison with the other two
activities using feedback and creating opportunities to gather information. The mean scores for
the three dimensions of employability show the participants have a more positive perception
of their occupational expertise compared to anticipation & optimization and personal flexibility.
Next, we examined the relationships between formal and informal learning and employabil-
ity (Table 2.2). The analysis reveals in general strong correlations between informal learning
and employability (ranging from r = 0.24 to r = 0.67, p< .01). Formal learning is significantly
positively correlated with all three employability dimensions: occupational expertise (r = 0.18,
p< .05), anticipation and optimization (r = 0.19, p< .05), and personal flexibility (r = 0.28,
p< .01). Regarding the control variables, there are some interesting results. Number of years in
organization is significantly negatively related to two informal learning activities: using feed-
back (r = -0.22, p< .05) and proactive learning from others (r = -0.19, p< .05). It appears that
the longer the employee works in one and the same organization, the less informal learning is
taking place. In contrast, the number of years in the current function is significantly positively
related to active engagement in learning opportunities.
Table 2.2 Descriptive statistics and correlations
VARIABLE M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1. Gender .74 .44
2. Age 43.44 8.31 .09
3. Years in organization 10.57 7.29 .16 .66**
4. Years in current function 9.47 6.71 .16 .55** .69**
5. Formal learning 19.01 8.28 -.08 .08 -.06 -.04
6. Informal learning:
Using feedback
3.86 .76 -.10 -.17 -.22* -.13 .11 (.90)
7. Informal learning:
Creating opportunities to
gather information
3.73 .75 -.06 .06 .00 .02 .08 .38** (.78)
8. Informal learning:
Active engagement in learning
opportunities
3.30 .91 .02 -.02 .02 .22* .13 .43** .54** (.77)
9. Informal learning:
Proactive learning from others
3.43 .77 -.14 -.18* -.19* -.06 .07 .59** .45** .59** (.80)
10. Occupational expertise 4.98 .52 .06 .07 .02 .18* .18* .28** .29** .29** .31** (.93)
11. Anticipation and
optimization
4.47 .68 -.09 -.07 -.14 -.06 .19* .39** .44** .41** .55** .52** (.82)
12. Personal flexibility 4.61 .46 .01 -.04 -.05 .03 .28** .24** .34** .41** .36** .67** .61** (.70)
Note. N= 121. Numbers in parentheses are Cronbach’s alpha
* p < .05, ** p < .01.

CHAPTER 2 / 4544 / CHAPTER 2
2.5.1 HYPOTHESIS TESTING
The three hypotheses were investigated using hierarchical regression analysis. The results are
depicted in Table 2.3. Hypothesis 1 specifies that formal learning influences employability. Re-
sults show that the control variables do not change the significant effect of formal learning on
personal flexibility (ß = 0.24, p< .01). Employees who follow formal learning programs seem to
better be able to adapt to all kinds of daily changes occurring in their work such as working with
new colleagues or technical equipment. The results are partly consistent with hypothesis 1.
Hypothesis 2 predicts that all four informal learning activities influence the three dimensions
of employability. The results show a significant relation of two informal learning behaviors on
employability. Creating opportunities to gather information from others is positively and signif-
icantly related to anticipation and optimization (ß = 0.22, p< .05). The same accounts for pro-
active learning from others (ß = 0.40, p< .001) that also has a significant effect on the second
dimension of employability. Therefore, hypothesis 2 is partly supported.
Hypothesis 3 states that informal learning has a stronger influence on employability than under-
taking formal learning. Results concerning the predictability of employability through formal and
informal learning are displayed in Table 2.3. As mentioned earlier, the results reveal that both
creating opportunities to gather information and proactive learning from others significantly
positively relate to anticipation and optimization, indicating that participant’s determination to
invest in their personal development is valuable for identifying opportunities and anticipating
future changes. Formal learning significantly predicts personal flexibility but not the other two
dimensions. Furthermore, the analysis shows that informal learning explains 20%, 36% and 21%
of variance in occupational expertise, anticipation and optimization and personal flexibility. After
entry of formal learning in step 3, the total variance is 22% for occupational expertise, 38% for
anticipation and optimization and 27% for personal flexibility. The introduction of formal learn-
ing in the third step does not explain significantly more variance confirming Hypothesis 3.
As far as the control variables are concerned, we found a significant positive relationship be-
tween the number of years in the current job function and occupational expertise. Respondents
working in the same job for several years seem to build up expertise necessary for the job.
Table 2.3 Results of hierarchical regression analysis for occupational expertise, anticipation and optimization, and personal flexibility
DEPENDENT VARIABLES
OCCUPATIONAL EXPERTISE ANTICIPATION AND OPTIMIZATION PERSONAL FLEXIBILITY
Variable R R Change βR R Change βR R Change β
Step 1 .06 .06 .03 .03 .01 .01
Gender .04 -.07 .01
Age .04 .03 -.03
Years in organization -.22 -.20 -.13
Years in current function .31* .06 .14
Step 2 .20** .14** .36*** .33*** .21*** .20***
Using feedback .17 .03 -.03
Creating opportunities to
gather information
.13 .22* .15
Active engagement in
learning opportunities
.00 .04 .23
Proactive learning from
others
.15 .40*** .17
Step 3 .22 .02 .38 .02 .27** .06**
Formal learning .14 .13 .24**
R .14** .32*** .21**
Note. N= 121. Standardized regression coefficients (Beta) are reported
*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Interestingly, none of the variables predicts occupational expertise. However, we find that the
number of years working in the current function play a role for occupational expertise (ß = 0.31,
p< .01). Figure 2.1 depicts the results and gives an overview of the significant relationships
between the variables.
Figure 2.1. Standardized estimates effects of informal learning, formal learning, and back-
ground characteristics on employability. Only significant effects are displayed.
Note. *p < .05, **p < .01. N = 121.
CHAPTER 2 / 4746 / CHAPTER 2
2.6 DISCUSSION
The current study was set up in the field of emergency medical services to empirically inves-
tigate how formal and informal learning relate to three dimensions of employability, i.e. occu-
pational expertise, anticipation and optimization and personal flexibility. While literature has
provided insight into formal and informal learning in the workplace in general (Boud & Middleton,
2003; Marsick, Volpe, & Watkins, 1999; Van de Wiel et al., 2011; Watkins & Marsick, 1992), this
study examined the specific informal learning behaviors employees engage in. Our results reveal
that two informal learning behaviors, creating opportunities to gather information and proac-
tive learning from others, affect the dimension anticipation and optimization. Employees in the
emergency medical services that create opportunities and proactively look for others are better
able to anticipate possible changes in their career. They have the ability to reflect on develop-
ments in their specific discipline and understand the requirements that these impose on their
own personal development. These results confirm previous research findings (Froehlich et al.,
2014; Van Dam, 2004). For example, Van Dam (2004) showed that employees scoring higher on
proactive behavior and take initiative were more willing to improve their employability.
Furthermore, employees taking part in formal learning programs help colleagues to deal with
changes occurring in their daily work behaviors such as new tasks and roles. Our results sug-
gest that formal learning seems to provide employees with a certain knowledge base and skills
necessary to be flexible in handling all kinds of small changes in the workplace. These results
contribute to earlier findings on formal learning and employability (Froehlich et al., 2014; Van
der Heijden et al., 2009).
Although not part of the investigation, it is interesting to note we found contrasting results
regarding the control variables. We found that the number of years working in an organization
is negatively related to two informal learning behaviors (using feedback and proactive learning
from others). It appears that by gaining a lot of work experience in an organization employ-
ee’s learning decreases. In contrast, the number of years working in the current function is
significantly positively related to active engagement in learning opportunities. It seems that
the organization does not trigger to invest in informal learning the longer you stay in it. It even
impedes learning. However, being longer in the function does seem to trigger informal learning.
Previous research identified organizational culture having a strong impact on informal learn-
ing (Ellinger, 2005; Marsick, Volpe, & Watkins, 1999). Future research should investigate if the
learning culture plays an antecedent role for informal learning.
Our findings also inform HRD practitioners and researchers on the complex mix of formal and
informal learning behaviors employees engage in and their influences. Typically, formal and infor-
mal learning are described as parts of a continuum (Eraut, 2000; Malcolm, Hodkinson, & Colley,
2003; Svensson, Ellström, & Åberg, 2004) and might complement each other (Tynjälä, 2008).
The findings of this study show that formal and informal learning behaviors enhance different
dimensions of employability. This might be not surprising since formal learning is a mandatory
part of the job in the emergency medical services. Employees have to follow formal training
Number of years in
current function
Using feedback
Creating opportunities
to gather information
Active engagement in
learning opportunities
gather information
Proactive learning
from others
Formal learning
Occupational
Expertise
Anticipation &
Optimization
Personal flexibility
.31*
.22*
.40**
.24**

CHAPTER 2 / 4948 / CHAPTER 2
programs to stay up-to-date and keep their job. Consequently, it is not clear to what extent
the results can be generalized to other contexts in which training is not mandatory or has no
consequences for maintaining a job. Repeating our study in those kind of context could be rel-
evant. Next, informal learning behaviors have a stronger influence on employability than formal
learning. This is in line with previous studies indicating that informal learning had a higher effect
on employability than formal learning (Froehlich et al., 2014). This study is one of the first that
defines informal learning by referring to concrete, observable behaviors and how these learning
behaviors contribute to the dimensions of employability. Research should continue to explore
in how far formal learning characteristics and organizational characteristics play a moderating
role in the relationship between informal learning behaviors and the dimensions of employability.
2.7 LIMITATIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
A few limitations and methodology issues are relevant for theory and future research. First,
self-report data were used to map the learning experiences of employees. This means we used
participant’s perceptions to measure both employability and informal learning behaviors, also
known as common method bias (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003; Podsakoff,
MacKenzie, & Podsakoff, 2012). Gathering data from different sources (for example, employees
and supervisors) can prevent the common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003). However, infor-
mal learning behaviors occur in informal situations and are therefore less observable by others.
The learners are the first to have sufficient information about to what extent they show informal
learning behavior in different (emergency) situations. The same counts for employability: in the
emergency medical services it is challenging for supervisors and colleagues to monitor closely
the daily work of every employee that often occurs outside the view of the supervisor at the
emergency scene. Future research could use multiple raters, for example, colleagues that are
present at the emergency situation. In addition, further cross-validation in other organizations
is recommended to increase generalizability. Second, although using a questionnaire is a valid
method to arrive at statistical descriptions of a large sample, due to its format, it necessarily
addresses a selection of the broad variety of informal learning behaviors that are taking place
in the reality of every day working life. Therefore, future research could use qualitative research
methods in tandem with the formerly used questionnaire method in order to explore the rich-
ness of the variety of informal learning behaviors employees engage in. Third, we did not take
into account characteristics of formal learning programs. Literature on transfer of training fo-
cuses on learner characteristics, training design and the transfer climate of the organization
(Kontoghiorghes, 2004). Future research could study similar research models, while also taking
into account the three groups of characteristics that might influence transfer of training. As
concerns the measurement of learning behaviors in informal settings, future research could also
study the relation between (in)formal learning and other outcome variables that are related to
employability such as innovative work behavior. Related to the interest in employability, in-
creased competition also requires organizations to stay innovative and keep on developing new
ideas or procedures. To accelerate innovation in organizations, it has been argued that inno-
vation has to be part of the behavior of each employee. Therefore, innovative work behavior of
employees may be an interesting outcome for future research.
2.8 PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR HRD
The relation between formal learning, informal learning and employability also has practical
implications, especially with reference to HRD. The above findings imply that it is worthwhile
to pay attention to daily interactions that take place in the work environment by, for exam-
ple, strengthening the exchange of feedback among colleagues in the workplace, to enhance
employability. This could, for example, be stimulated by setting up an e-learning platform that
supports employee’s informal learning by identifying and making available the expertise of col-
leagues. Knowing which colleagues possess which knowledge can encourage employees to share
knowledge and information in order to proactively learn from others. The interaction and collab-
oration lay the foundation for enhancing employability among employees.
Next, informal learning is not intended to replace formal learning. Formal learning adds most
when it is relevant and timed but needs further informal learning for the best effect in the work-
place. Ideally, both informal and formal learning are part of an employee’s learning opportunities
to sustain employability. Recognizing the value in supporting employees’ continuous learning,
HRD practitioners should create a supportive work environment. This work environment offers
a variety of learning opportunities that stimulate employees to interact and learn from each
other. For example, providing time and space can support informal learning (Tannenbaum et al.,
2010) by encouraging employees to follow training and share their knowledge gained with the
colleagues in the workplace. In line with our results, investing in interventions that support
the relationship between colleagues in the workplace seems rewarding. One way is to create
awareness of informal learning through the use of workshops in which HRD practitioners help
employees to broaden their view on learning. These workshops can help unfreeze their view on
learning. Employees could be asked to describe what they do when confronted with challeng-
ing issues where they do not know an answer immediately. Do they turn to their colleagues or
supervisors and ask for advice? To maximize the benefits of these learning opportunities, HRD
practitioners should support their employees by taking a more strategic look at their offerings.

CHAPTER 2 / 5150 / CHAPTER 2
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CHAPTER 2 / 5554 / CHAPTER 2

APPENDIX: ITEMS AND FACTOR LOADINGS
INFORMAL LEARNING
Loadings
Items 1 2 3 4
Feedback from management motivates me to act .914
Feedback from management makes me reflect. .892
Feedback from colleagues motivates me to act. .885
Feedback from colleagues makes me reflect. .848
I help colleagues dealing with work issues. .655
I help management dealing with work issues. .515
I look into the results of job controls, audits, and inspections. .830
I attend lectures of guest speakers from outside the organization. .719
I use the internet to find information related to my work. .586
I participate in meetings. .544
I meet colleagues from other organizations by participating in
conferences, workshops, and lectures.
.515
I coach internal trainees. .761
When I have a question, I mostly ask colleagues that have the same
educational background.
.719
I participate in project teams composed of employees from different
departments.
.590
I participate in department meetings. .570
I participate in case discussion. .496
I participate in project groups to discuss work-related problems. .406
I discuss the results of quality audits with my colleagues. -.716
When I need help, tips or advice, I ask my colleagues or members of
the management team.
-.679
I am part of a learning or knowledge network (Community of
practice).
-.604
I ask colleagues, supervisors, and subordinates for feedback about my
own functioning.
-.558
Colleagues ask me for feedback. -.461
I make recommendations for improvement based on project reports
and dossiers.
-.417
Eigenvalue 9.17 2.73 1.53 1.23
Percentage explained variance 30.58 9.10 5.11 4.11
Cronbach’s alpha .90 .78 .75 .80
Note: Rotated factor matrix: oblimin rotation. Loadings below .40 omitted.
Excluded items:
I have a coach
I have a mentor
I meet colleagues in a common space (office, meeting room,…)
CHAPTER 2 / 5756 / CHAPTER 2

Chapter 3
Working on the professional development of faculty staff
in higher education: Investigating the relationship between
social informal learning activities and employability*
Published as:
Gerken, M., Beausaert, S., & Segers, M. (2015). Working on the professional development of fa-
culty staff in higher education: Investigating the relationship between social informal learning
activities and employability. Human Resource Development International, 1-17.
doi: 10.1080/13678868.2015.1116241
*This study was partially funded by SoFoKles (Sociaal Fonds voor de KennisSector)

CHAPTER 3 / 6160 / CHAPTER 3
ABSTRACT
In this study, we examined how social informal learning and formal learning of faculty staff in
higher education relate to their employability. Data were collected from 209 faculty staff mem-
bers working at a Dutch university. Results showed that social informal learning was related to
the employability of faculty staff. Further analysis revealed that especially external information
seeking and acting upon feedback from colleagues and not formal learning predicted the employ-
ability of faculty staff. The finding suggests that institutes of higher education should especially
foster the professional development of their faculty staff by stimulating exchange of information
and seeking and using feedback with colleagues in a proactive manner.
3.1 INTRODUCTION
The concept of lifelong learning has been recognized as a necessity for enhancing professional
development (Carnevale & Smith, 2013). Reforms and fast-evolving knowledge continuously re-
quire faculty staff to innovate and rethink their practices to keep on delivering high-quality work
(Futrell, 2010; Hökka & Etelapelto, 2014; Nicholls, 2005). Rethinking practices does not only
imply updating professional expertise in the domain of learning and instruction; it also means
being able to deal with new ideas and practices which are suggested or yet implemented as
well as taking a proactive role in reflecting on the current developments in the field, and acting
upon those developments (Darling-Hammond, 2010). In this respect, Van der Heijde and Van
der Heijden (2006) use the concept of employability. Faculty staff that are employable possess
the following core competences, namely occupational expertise (having the knowledge), antici-
pation and optimization (taking a proactive role in reflecting on the current developments in
one’s field and the potential changes for the job, and acting upon those developments), personal
flexibility (passively adapting to changes related to the tasks and functions in the workplace),
corporate sense (participation in different work groups and sharing responsibilties), and balance
(having a work-life balance; Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006). Enhancing the employabil-
ity of faculty staff requires professional development that involves both teaching and learning
and creates new visions of what, when, and how faculty staff should learn in the workplace
(Darling-Hammond, 2010; Futrell, 2010; Hökka & Etelapelto, 2014; Richter, Kunter, Klusmann,
Lüdtke, & Baumert, 2011).
Traditionally, professional development needs of faculty staff have been answered with formal
in-service training activities such as workshops or seminars based on the notion that knowledge
and expertise are best updated outside the day-to-day work context (Futrell, 2010; Nicholls,
2005). However, formal activities have been criticized for not meeting the needs of faculty staff
(Poulson & Avramidis, 2003). These needs include the notion that professional development
evolves over time and that much of the learning takes place in an informal way in the daily work
practice (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Eraut, 2004; Hoekstra, Brekelmans, Beijaard, & Korthagen,
2009; Nicholls, 2005; Roscoe, 2002). Informal learning is generally defined as learning that is
unstructured and happens spontaneously in the workplace without systematic support to foster
learning (Hoekstra et al., 2009; Marsick & Volpe, 1999; Richter et al., 2011). According to lit-
erature, informal learning can take place individually through, for example, reading professional
literature, and socially in collaboration with others (Eraut, 2004), and is expected to support the
professional development of faculty staff (Lohman, 2006).
Prior studies measuring informal learning did not clearly differentiate between individual and
social informal learning in relation to professional development (e.g. Kwakman, 2003; Lohman,
2003; Richter et al., 2011). However, increasing evidence for social informal learning is found
making it necessary to research the influence of individual and social informal learning separate-
ly. For example, research on the professional learning communities of faculty staff showed that
professional development is built upon learning from others through collaboration, reflective dia-
logue among colleagues and nurturing relationships for the purpose of collectively constructing

CHAPTER 3 / 6362 / CHAPTER 3
new meaning and improving the skills and knowledge that result in action (DuFour, 2004; Vescio,
Ross, & Adams, 2008; Williams, 2003). In addition, Van der Heijden, Boon, Van der Klink, and
Meijs (2009) indicated that especially networking as a part of social informal learning in terms
of meeting and exchanging information with colleagues inside and outside the organization was
associated with employability. Carbery and Garavan (2005) found that in times of structural
and strategic change, individuals preferred to help and learn from colleagues in order to devel-
op professionally. Other authors emphasized the importance of collaboration and professional
dialogue in general for the professional development of faculty staff (Guasch, Alvarez, & Espasa,
2010; Horn & Little, 2010; Korthagen, Loughran, & Russell, 2006; Little, 2002; Van Kruiningen,
2013). Since these studies indicate the importance of social informal learning but have been
conceptualizing social informal learning in a quite broad way (social networks, collaboration, and
dialogue), the purpose of the current study is to investigate how specific social informal learning
activities as well as formal learning activities relate to the employability of faculty staff.
3.2 THE EMPLOYABILITY OF FACULTY STAFF
The importance of dealing with and anticipating on changing work conditions is an important
topic in research on teaching and teacher education (Avalos, 2011; Hökka & Etelapelto, 2014;
Vescio et al., 2008). For example, innovation in the teaching domain requires faculty staff to
adopt new pedagogical approaches (Putnam & Borko, 2000) and in turn direct their own pro-
fessional development (Kwakman, 2003). However, not only the field of teaching is challenged
by continuous change. In many professions, employees face increasing dynamics in the market
they operate in. In order to be able to deal with these dynamics, the concept of employability
has gained interest in workplace learning research (Fugate & Kinicki, 2008; Thijssen, Van der
Heijden, & Rocco, 2008; Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006).
Employability is a widely used concept in organizations and has been defined in several ways
(Forrier & Sels, 2003; Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006). Taking a historical perspective,
Forrier and Sels (2003) presented a comparative conceptualization of the term employability. In
the 1950s and 1960s, characterized by economic prosperity, full employment was high on the
governmental agenda. In this respect, employability referred to the aim of getting the unprivi-
leged and unemployed to the labour market. In the 1970s, the focus shifted to the employees
having the necessary skills and knowledge in order to be as employable as possible. In the 1980s,
employability was no longer defined as a labour market instrument but rather as an HR instru-
ment in terms of reaching optimal functional flexibility. In the 1990s, employability was again
defined from a labour market perspective, and did not only refer to the entry into the labour
market, but especially focused on career possibilities within and beyond the borders of organi-
zations. However, the fast rate of organizational and environmental changes makes it difficult
to define employability from a labour market perspective. In addition, job-based human resource
management (HRM) systems have been replaced by competence-based, person-related HRM
systems during the past decade. This change has been fuelled by an increasing prevalence of
cross-organizational careers and changing job descriptions (Brown, Hesketh, & Williams, 2003;
McArdle, Waters, Briscoe, & Hall, 2007). Taking into account the organizational psychology
perspective, employability is seen as the perceived likelihood of getting and maintaining a job
(Berntson & Marklund, 2007). More specifically, it refers to an individual’s perceived capabilities
of getting new employment. In this context, Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden (2006) have
been suggesting a competence-based conceptualization of employability in order to gain a
deeper understanding of the individual capabilities of employability. They define employability
as “the continuous fulfilling, acquiring or creating of work through the optimal use of compe-
tencies” (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006, p. 435). Based on extensive literature and em-
pirical research, they identified five competences of an employable employee (or dimensions of
employability), namely occupational expertise, anticipation and optimization, personal flexibility,
corporate sense, and balance (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006). Occupational expertise
refers to having knowledge and skills for the current job. Anticipation and optimization means
taking an active role in reflecting on the current developments in one’s field, and acting upon
those developments. Personal flexibility means passively adapting to changes related to the
tasks and functions in the workplace. Corporate sense consists of identifying with the corpo-
rate goals of an organization thereby accepting collective responsibilities. Balance is defined as
the compromise between the employer’s interests and the employee’s work, career, and private
interests (Thijssen et al., 2008; Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006). For this study, the con-
cept of employability, as defined by Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden (2006), is selected as an
indicator for the professional development of faculty staff, as the authors define employability
as a construct that is subject to learning and the context. This competence-based approach en-
ables faculty staff to keep track of their career needs (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006).
After the assessment of competences, faculty staff can take actions to improve their employ-
ability through job-related activities (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2005). More speci-
fically, we are interested in the expertise (occupational expertise) and adaptability of faculty
staff (anticipation and optimization and personal flexibility) in the job. The different dimensions
of employability separately have gained attention in the domain of teaching, for example, when
studying the professional development of faculty staff (Nauta, Vianen, Van der Heijden, Dam,
& Willemsen, 2009). Professional development in education means that faculty staff members
are flexible in the workplace (Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995; Little, 2002), deal with
innovations and future changes (Gorozidis & Papaioannou, 2014), and possess the necessary
professional expertise (Kwakman, 2003; Lohman, 2006). Consequently, they must be supported
in developing these competences.
3.3 FORMAL AND INFORMAL LEARNING ACTIVITIES
Having discussed the importance of employability, we now focus on the variables predictive for
being employable. Researchers in the domain of workplace learning stress that the dynamics
in the workplace ask for supporting professionals’ employability and in turn for providing them
with learning experiences (Mulder, 2013; Van der Heijden & Bakker, 2011). Learning experiences

CHAPTER 3 / 6564 / CHAPTER 3
in the workplace can occur in different settings such as formal and informal, individually or in
social interaction (Tynjälä, 2008). Previous research on employability mainly focused on formal
learning activities (Nauta et al., 2009; Van der Heijden et al., 2009). Formal learning activities
are intentionally planned educational activities that usually take place outside the classroom
(e.g. in the form of training or workshops and seminars). Learning in this setting happens in
a structured environment in which experts disseminate information that can be applied in the
workplace (Tannenbaum, Beard, McNall, & Salas, 2010). Formal learning activities such as train-
ing, workshops, and courses are still the most widely used form for supporting professional
development of faculty staff (Futrell, 2010; Richter et al., 2011). However, changes in the work-
place are rapid and continual, which creates challenges for traditional, formal learning (Ellinger,
2005). Formal training cannot keep up and it becomes nearly impossible to follow the need for
learning and development activities (Eraut, 2004). Moreover, research has shown that effects of
formal learning on employees’ performance are limited. Individuals attributed less than 10% of
their personal development to formal learning activities (e.g. Flynn, Eddy, & Tannenbaum, 2006;
Tannenbaum, 1997). Moving beyond the basic training programmes, Noe, Tews, and Marand
(2013) estimate that informal learning accounts for up to 75% of learning that occurs within
organisations. Informal learning is defined by Mulder (2013, p. 52) as “cognitive and physical
learning activities (that lead to cognitive activities) that can be deliberate or reactive, and that
lead to competences but not to formal qualifications”. Hoekstra et al. (2009) add that informal
learning “refers to learning in the workplace where systematic support of learning, such as pro-
fessional development trajectories, is absent” (p. 663). Informal learning can happen individu-
ally (self-focused learning activities) or in social interaction (other-focused learning activities).
Prior research studies focused on the measurement of informal learning (e.g. Lohman, 2003;
Poulson & Avramidis, 2003; Richter et al., 2011). These studies did not differentiate between
individual and social informal learning and generally asked participants about whether they
undertook several activities such as discussing issues with colleagues, collaboration, sharing
materials and resources, mentoring or coaching, and also observing others or reading profes-
sional literature. However, increasing evidence for social informal learning is found making it
worthwhile to differentiate between individual and social informal learning in order to study
the effects separately. Influenced by socio-constructivist learning theories, the social nature
of learning, that is, proactively seeking for relevant others in the workplace to fuel a continual
update of knowledge and skills, has gained a lot of interest (Conlon, 2004; Eraut, 2004; Tyn-
jälä, 2008). Being proactive in a social context is described as being central to informal learning
(Eraut, 2004) and takes place at professional’s own initiative (Grant & Ashford, 2008). Related
evidence from the empirical research reinforces this view, revealing that acting upon feedback,
information seeking and help seeking are components of social informal learning (Froehlich,
Beausaert, Segers, & Gerken, 2014; Kyndt, Dochy, & Nijs, 2009). Information seeking refers
to a proactive search for and giving of information (Cross, Rice, & Parker, 2001). Acting upon
feedback means to identify the adequacy of one’s behaviour and seek and use the feedback to
secure certain goals (Ashford & Cummings, 1983). Effective feedback is a dialogue either between
employees or between employee and supervisor to share information and perspectives about
performance. Employees have to use the information they either sought or received and act
upon it to change or learn (Ashford, 1986). Help-seeking behaviour can be seen as a specific type
of information-seeking behaviour (Lee, 1997) and involves asking others for assistance or ad-
vice (Karabenick & Knapp, 1988). A few studies demonstrated a positive relation between these
three specific learning activities and performance (Ashford, 1986). For example, information
seeking allows employees to experience less uncertainty and understand factors that lead to
job success and higher satisfaction and performance (Borgatti & Cross, 2003; Morrison, 2002).
Studies showed that feedback seeking helps individuals to continuously improve their perfor-
mance at work (Gupta, 1999; Salas & Rosen, 2010; Van der Rijt, Van den Bossche, Van de Wiel,
Segers, & Gijselaers, 2012) and improve learning processes and results (Shute, 2008). Moreover,
employees who not only gather but also act upon the feedback are able to understand how to
perform effectively, oversee perceptions about their potential, and assess their performance
(Anseel, Lievens, & Levy, 2007). Acting upon feedback presents a relevant step in an employee’s
learning experience. Another important component to employees is help seeking. Help seeking
supports to expand resources like knowledge (Lee, 1997) and is therefore seen as a key element
to achieve job success (Hofmann, Lei, & Grant, 2009; Van der Rijt et al., 2013). Employees mainly
seek help to solve problems and, in turn, further develop their expertise (Lee, 1997).
3.4 THE ROLE OF FORMAL AND SOCIAL INFORMAL LEARNING ACTIVITIES IN
SUPPORTING THE EMPLOYABILITY OF FACULTY STAFF
Previous research focused on the link between professional development of faculty staff in gen-
eral (e.g. Avalos, 2011) and autonomy (e.g. Clement & Vandenberghe, 2000) or learning in gener-
al (e.g. Borko, 2004). To our knowledge, however, only a few empirical studies have been looking
into the relation between formal and social informal learning and employability (e.g. Van der
Heijden et al., 2009). Van der Heijden et al. (2009) evidenced the importance of formal as well
as informal learning for the employability of non-academic staff members at a Dutch university.
They measured the role of the amount of formal learning activities as well as the role of network
resources inside and outside the organization. Network resources refer to “all relationship ties
that provide career and psychosocial support, and of which the individual is aware, as well as
those relationship ties that assist career progression without the individual’s full knowledge or
awareness” (Van der Heijden et al. 2009, p. 8-9). The results show that the uptake of informal
learning activities relates to more dimensions of employability than formal learning activities.
More concretely, participating in formal training programmes positively relates professionals’
occupational expertise as well as anticipation and optimization. Networking within the own
organization is positively related to occupational expertise, flexibility, balance, and corporate
sense. Networking outside the company is positively related to anticipation and optimization.
Other research studies addressed the informal learning practices of faculty staff on professional
development (Lohman, 2006; Panagiotakopoulos, 2011; Poulson & Avramidis, 2003; Richter et
al., 2011). Lohman (2006) revealed in her study on informal learning that faculty staff preferred
talking and collaboration with colleagues instead of individual activities such as reading profes-
sional literature. Panagiotakopoulos (2011) proposed that informal learning is seen as on-the-

CHAPTER 3 / 6766 / CHAPTER 3
job training where faculty staff can observe, imitate, and learn from others. In their study among
265 faculty staff members, Poulson and Avramidis (2003) identified collaboration and dialogue
among colleagues as an informal learning activity that contributed to the expertise development
of faculty staff. Richter et al. (2011) looked at the update of formal and informal learning oppor-
tunities among 1939 secondary school teachers. The authors operationalized informal learning
opportunities as individual engagement in professional literature and as collaboration among
teachers. They found that the uptake of these opportunities changed across the teaching career
with older teachers collaborating less and using professional literature more frequently com-
pared to younger teachers (Richter et al., 2011).
In summary, the results of the previous studies indicate that social informal learning is an im-
portant determinant of professionalization. However, these studies have been addressing the
role of social informal learning on employability in a quite general way (social networks, collab-
oration, and dialogue), implicitly incorporating informal learning behaviours such as information
seeking (Lee, 1997; Loh, Friedman, & Burdick, 2014), asking for help or advice (Karabenick,
2004), and seeking feedback (Ashford, 1986). In this study, we want to address this gap by
investigating the relationship between social informal learning activities, formal learning activ-
ities, and employability.
3.5 RESEARCH QUESTION AND HYPOTHESES
The central research question is: how do social informal learning and formal learning activities
of faculty staff relate to their employability in terms of occupational expertise, anticipation and
optimization and personal flexibility? Based on the few prior studies addressing this question,
we formulate the following working hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: Both social informal learning and formal learning activities are
positively related to occupational expertise, anticipation and
optimization and personal flexibility.
Hypothesis 2: Undertaking social informal learning activities predicts more dimensions
of employability than participating in formal learning activities.
3.6 METHOD
An online survey was conducted to measure the dependent variable of employability and the
independent variables of social informal and formal learning in order to study their relations.
3.6.1 SAMPLE AND DATA COLLECTION
The sample of this study consisted of faculty staff working at a university in the Netherlands.
Participants were appointed as teachers and their main task was teaching. In the margin they
also fulfil additional tasks, such as administration service and research. Participants were invited
via email to respond anonymously and voluntarily to the online survey. The email was sent via a
central office of the university to all faculty staff. There were 2158 participants contacted with
the invitation to respond to the survey. In total, 209 participants filled in the survey (response
rate: 10%).
A total of 86 male and 123 female participants took part. Their age ranged from 22 years to
69 years with a mean age of 35.88 years (SD = 11.279). Out of the 209 participants 159 had a
non-tenured position and 50 participants had a tenured position at the university. The teaching
experience ranged from less than 1 year (7% of the participants) to more than 20 years (22 %
of the participants). Most participants had teaching experience between 1 and 5 years (35%).
The majority (52%) of the participants worked in their current position between 1 and 5 years.
3.6.2 MEASURES
For this study, social informal learning, formal learning, employability, and demographic charac-
teristics of faculty staff were measured. Informal learning was based on a newly developed and
validated scale (Froehlich et al., 2014). We slightly reformulated the label of the scales given
the focus on the acting upon phase during the feedback-seeking process. The questionnaire
consists of 10 items and comprises four sub-dimensions rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging
from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree): acting upon feedback supervisor, acting upon feed-
back colleagues, external information seeking, and help seeking (see also appendix). In the ori-
ginal validation study, the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses among 895 employees in
various sectors found a stable set of four social informal learning activities: external information
seeking (two items, sample item: “I meet employees from other organisations by participating in
conferences, workshops, and lectures”), acting upon feedback from the supervisor (three items,
sample item: “The feedback I receive from my supervisor motivates me to reflect”), acting upon
feedback from colleagues (three items, sample item: “Feedback from colleagues makes me act”),
and help seeking (two items, sample item: “Getting help would be one of the first things I would
do if I were having trouble at work”). We confirmed this factor structure also in our sample (see
also appendix). The model achieved acceptable fit: Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.90, Root Mean
Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.13, and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual

CHAPTER 3 / 6968 / CHAPTER 3
(SRMR) = 0.05 (Hu & Bentler, 1999). All scales were internally consistent with a Cronbach’s
alpha of 0.80 for acting upon feedback supervisor, 0.71 for acting upon feedback colleague,
0.67 for external information seeking, and 0.62 for help seeking. Although two scales were
below 0.70, the analysis was continued. For research purposes, reliability as low as 0.60 is still
acceptable and the reliability has been proven to be satisfactory in several studies (Froehlich et
al., 2014).
To measure formal learning, an open-ended question was used looking into the number of hours
faculty staff spent during the past year on different formal learning activities such as trainings,
seminars, and workshops.
The three competencies of employability were measured with a validated employability scale
(Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006), looking into occupational expertise, anticipation and
optimization and flexibility. All 31 items were rated on a 6-point Likert scale. Sample items are:
“I consider myself competent to engage in in-depth, specialist discussions in my job domain”
(Occupational expertise), “I take responsibility for maintaining my labour market value” (An-
ticipation and optimization), and “How easily would you say you can adapt to changes in your
workplace?” (Personal flexibility). The internal consistency of all three scales was satisfactory
with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.91 for occupational expertise, 0.85 for anticipation and optimiza-
tion and 0.77 for personal flexibility. A confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the structure:
CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.062, and SRMR = 0.07.
The control variables included gender, age, and tenure, which have been previously found to be
associated with employability. Gender was measured and coded with women as 0 and men as 1.
We asked participants to indicate their age and whether they had a tenure position or not.
Likewise, non-tenure was coded as 0 and tenure as 1.
3.7 DATA ANALYSIS
Data were analyzed by first doing preliminary analysis (means, standard deviations and correla-
tions). Next, multivariate multiple regression analyses were performed. This analysis deals with
more than one dependent variable and one or more independent variables (Huberty & Morris,
1989). Furthermore, this analysis takes account of the relation between the dependent variab-
les. Social informal learning activities and control variables were entered as independents and
occupational expertise, anticipation and optimization, and personal flexibility were entered as
dependent variables.
3.8 RESULTS
3.8.1 PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS
The descriptive statistics in Table 3.1 provides an overview of all variables. The data show that
faculty staff spent 61 hours on average on formal training activities such as courses and work-
shops in the last year. However, the standard deviation was high (SD = 56.84), indicating a large
variation in the number of hours faculty staff spent on formal learning activities. Formal learning
hours ranged from 0 to 200. Regarding social informal learning, the mean score of feedback seek-
ing from the supervisor was the highest among the scales (M = 4.00, SD = 0.91). Help seeking
had the lowest score (M = 3.40, SD = 0.67). Furthermore, the standard deviations of all social
informal learning scales were rather low indicating that faculty staff undertake a comparable
amount of social informal learning activities. What concerns employability, the mean of the scale
‘occupational expertise’ was slightly higher than the scores of the two other dimensions (M =
4.64, SD = 0.57) suggesting that participants believe to possess a lot of expertise in their field.
Next, we examined the relationships between variables. The results of the correlational analysis
are shown in Table 3.2. Regarding social informal learning, it was found that participants who
acted upon feedback from colleagues showed more occupational expertise (r = 0.17, p < .05),
anticipation and optimization (r = 0.33, p < .01), and personal flexibility (r = 0.21, p < .01). In
addition, faculty staff that acted upon feedback from their supervisor, seeking external informa-
tion and help seeking were also better at anticipating and optimizing (r = 0.20, p < .01; r = 0.35,
p < .01; r = 0.14, p < .05, respectively). The results showed formal learning was significantly
positively related to anticipation & optimization (r = 0.15, p < .05). This means that faculty staff
that follow formal learning activities are also looking for change and anticipate future events.
3.8.2 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL INFORMAL LEARNING, FORMAL
LEARNING, AND EMPLOYABILITY
We predicted the employability of faculty staff by social informal learning and formal learning
in order to address the first and second hypothesis. Multivariate multiple regression analyses
were conducted with the three dimensions of employability as dependent variables. Using Wilks’
lambda, there was a significant relation between age (Wilks’ Lambda = 0.871, F (3, 198) = 9.790,
p < .001, partial eta = 0.129), acting upon feedback colleague (Wilks’ Lambda = 0.917,
F (3, 198) = 5.943, p < .05, partial eta = 0.083), and external information seeking (Wilks’
Lambda = 0.920, F (3, 198) = 5.736, p < .05, partial eta = 0.080) on employability. Subsequent
analyses revealed that age and acting upon feedback colleague were associated with occupati-
onal expertise, though the effect was rather small with 7% and 5% of the variance explained.
The scores on anticipation and optimization were predicted by acting upon feedback colleague
(7% of the variance explained) and external information seeking (7% of the variance explained).
Finally, personal flexibility was significantly and positively predicted by age (2%), acting upon
feedback colleague (5%), and help seeking (4% of the variance explained; see Table 3.2 for
an overview). The results largely reject our first hypothesis stating that both social informal

CHAPTER 3 / 7170 / CHAPTER 3
Table 3.1 Means, standard deviations, and correlations
VARIABLE M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
1. Gender 1.41 0.49
2. Age 35.88 11.27 .17*
3. Tenure 0.24 0.42 .16* .38**
4. Formal learning 61.01 56.84 .03 -.14* -.03
5. Acting upon feedback
supervisor
4.00 0.91 -.05 -.39** -.20** .12 (.80)
6. Acting upon feedback
colleague
3.97 0.65 -.08 -.07 -.01 .04 .49** (.71)
7. External information seeking 3.46 0.83 -.02 -.23** .10 .28** .16* .17* (.67)
8. Help seeking 3.40 0.67 -.04 -.10 .03 -.02 .36** .19** .04 (.62)
9. Occupational expertise 4.64 0.57 .14* .35** .25** -.00 -.11 .17* .06 .05 (.91)
10. Anticipation and
optimization
4.25 0.69 .03 -.10 .08 .15* .20** .33** .35** .14* .29** (.85)
11. Personal flexibility 4.30 0.52 -.00 .15* .02 .02 -.00 .21** .06 .16* .54** .47** (.77)
Note. N= 209. Numbers in parentheses are Cronbach’s alpha
*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01
learning and formal learning activities are positively related to occupational expertise, anticipa-
tion and optimization and personal flexibility. Overall, it was found that formal learning was not
significantly related to the three components of employability and did not significantly explain
any of the variance between faculty staff members. In contrast, in relation to social informal
learning, acting upon feedback from colleagues related significantly positively to all three di-
mensions of employability. These results suggest that especially social informal learning activi-
ties are significantly related to employability and not both formal and social informal learning,
which confirms our second hypothesis. No significant effect was found for acting upon feedback
supervisor.
Table 3.2 Multivariate GLM with social informal learning, formal learning and control
variables as independents and employability as dependent variables
INDEPENDENT VARIABLE B* Sig PARTIAL ETA
Occupational expertise (R =0.176)
Gender 0.116 0.128 0.012
Age 0.015 0.000 0.071
Tenure 0.110 0.251 0.007
Formal learning 0.000 0.743 0.001
Acting upon feedback supervisor -0.087 0.108 0.013
Acting upon feedback colleagues 0.206 0.002 0.047
External information seeking 0.069 0.153 0.010
Help seeking 0.080 0.172 0.009
Anticipation and optimization (R =0.195)
Gender 0.098 0.280 0.006
Age -0.003 0.492 0.002
Tenure 0.108 0.347 0.004
Formal learning 0.001 0.357 0.004
Acting upon feedback supervisor -0.019 0.769 0.000
Acting upon feedback colleagues 0.308 0.000 0.071
External information seeking 0.230 0.000 0.074
Help seeking 0.081 0.246 0.007
Personal flexibility (R =0.084)
Gender 0.004 0.955 0.000
Age 0.009 0.025 0.025
Tenure -0.108 0.242 0.007
Formal learning 0.000 0.541 0.002
Acting upon feedback supervisor -0.095 0.068 0.017
Acting upon feedback colleagues 0.203 0.002 0.048
External information seeking 0.052 0.266 0.006
Help seeking 0.156 0.006 0.037
Note. N= 209. *Unstandardized regression coefficients are reported

CHAPTER 3 / 7372 / CHAPTER 3
3.9 DISCUSSION
Employability of faculty staff is becoming more and more important given the fast-evolving
knowledge and innovations they are continuously dealing with. Literature suggests that faculty
staff can best work on their continuous employability by lifelong (in)formal learning. Prior re-
search on informal learning mostly focused on individual informal learning and the use of
non-personal resources such as books and the internet (Conlon, 2004; Richter et al., 2011).
Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the role of social informal learning
activities and formal learning activities of faculty staff in higher education on their employa-
bility. Our main assumption was that social informal learning activities, defined as acting upon
feedback from supervisor, acting upon feedback from colleagues, external information seeking,
and help seeking, were significantly related to employability, that is, occupational expertise,
anticipation and optimization and personal flexibility.
The results contribute evidence that in contrast to formal learning, social informal learning re-
lates to employability (Richter et al., 2011; Van der Heijden et al., 2009). More specifically,
acting upon feedback from colleagues and external information seeking help faculty staff to
anticipate future changes and act upon them. In addition, seeking help from others helps faculty
staff members to be flexible in their daily work and to react to different situations as needed.
In that sense, our results underline the importance of social, proactive learning activities. In
sum, these findings lead to the overall conclusion that employability is foremost supported by
social informal learning activities. The faculty staff members high in acting upon feedback, ex-
ternal information seeking and help seeking have the proactive behaviour that is necessary to
be employable. Professional development might benefit from the establishment of an informal
learning culture where faculty staff is invited to proactively act upon feedback and seek help
and information. These findings are in line with previous research (Richter et al., 2011; Van der
Heijden et al., 2009; Vescio et al., 2008) showing that the uptake of social informal learning
opportunities extends professional development. We did not find any support for the relation-
ship between formal learning activities and employability. While the variation of formal learning
hours among participants was high, it had no effect on their employability. This finding extends
previous research stating that most learning occurs not in a formal setting but in a more natural,
informal workplace setting (Tannenbaum et al., 2010).
Although not a central variable in this study, it is noteworthy that age was significantly positi-
vely related to two dimensions of employability, that is, occupational expertise and personal flex-
ibility. Possibly, older faculty staff members possess expertise in their job and have dealt with
different situations during their working life providing them with knowledge and information. In
addition, this may be because older faculty staff members that are likely to have more work ex-
perience are more likely to see the potential of learning through interaction with others, or they
serve as experts that rather give information and feedback to others. This result is in contrast
with previous studies that consider age as a negative predictor of learning associated with a
learning loss (Maurer & Weiss, 2010; Nauta et al., 2009) and found that older teachers preferred
individual learning activities such as reading compared to younger teachers (Richter et al., 2011).
3.10 LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Future research on the relation between social informal learning and employability should address
some limitations of the study presented here. First, our study was primarily based on faculty staff
working at a relative young medium-sized Dutch university. Taking into account that universities
differ in terms of the extent to which they engage in innovation (see, for example, the Quacquarelli
Symonds (QS) rankings of universities with respect to level of engagement in innovation) as well
as in organizational culture and more specific learning climate aspects (Altbach & Knight, 2007;
Folch & Ion, 2009; Zhu & Engels, 2014), cross-validation of our results in other universities is
necessary. Second, this is a cross-sectional study and levels of education show significant diffe-
rences in terms of engaging in innovations and building of professional communities (Little, 2002;
Vescio et al., 2008). Therefore, our results cannot be generalized to other groups that were not
represented in the sample, for example, teachers in secondary education and cross-validation to
other levels of education is necessary. Moreover, these cross-validation studies offer the oppor-
tunity to measure the effect of differences in organizational structure as well as level of innovation
on social informal learning behaviours and employability. Third, we only reached a response rate
of 10% that might have biased the results. This low response rate might be a result of the online
administration via a central office of the university. Communicating to faculty staff via a central
office is the most time-efficient way; however, given the distance between the office and the
staff, it is not always the most effective in terms of response rate. Faculty staff most often inherit
several roles in teaching, research, and administration, that can influence the little time they have
to spend on learning from others in the professional learning communities. In addition, it might be
that only those faculty staff interested in learning responded to the survey. However, preliminary
analysis showed that our sample data set was normally distributed. Future research could focus on
obtaining the department chairs’ support as they are in direct contact with faculty staff. Fourth,
we used participant’s perceptions to measure employability and social informal learning beha-
viours, also known as common method variance (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003;
Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Podsakoff, 2012). However, with respect to measuring learning behaviour
that takes place in informal settings, participants are the first to be able to indicate to what extent
they demonstrate this behaviour. The same counts for employability competences: except for tho-
se supervisors who monitor closely the daily work of their faculty staff, only faculty staff members
have sufficient information to rate themselves. For future research, we suggest to ask respondents
to provide concrete examples of learning behaviours to rule out the halo effect, at least to a cer-
tain extent (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006). In this study we focused on social informal
learning activities of faculty staff. However, we did not look into the role that individual informal
learning might play (e.g. reading books or websites). Former research found out that older teachers
tend to seek information from books and professional literature (Richter et al., 2011) and might
be less interested in social informal learning. Future research could take into account both forms
of informal learning and study their independent as well as combined effect on output measures
such as employability and performance. In addition, future research would benefit from the further
conceptual development of the terms social and individual informal learning. Once the term is
conceptually further unraveled, questionnaires and interview guides could be further developed to
grasp social and informal learning in the workplace.

CHAPTER 3 / 7574 / CHAPTER 3
3.11 PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR FACULTY STAFF
Jobs have become more complex and challenging and institutes for higher education cannot rely
on formal learning experiences only to support the professional development of their faculty
staff since transfer to the workplace is often limited and these training programs can often not
keep up with the high-speed developments in practice. This study demonstrates that formal
learning activities are insufficient for staying employable in higher education. In this respect, it
is important to recognize the role of social informal learning activities as an integrated part of
daily work that facilitates employability. Attention should therefore be paid to the integration
and support of social informal learning in the workplace, or to stimulating acting upon feedback
and seeking information and help in order to promote updated knowledge and skills. For example,
this can be reached by stimulating a different form of collegial collaboration among faculty staff.
Professional learning communities are an interesting medium for enhancing social informal lear-
ning. Given the advances in technology, online platforms such as Learning Management Systems
offer ample opportunities to support faculty staff in connecting to each other as sources of in-
formation and help. Stimulating faculty staff to be each other’s mentor can facilitate acting upon
feedback from colleagues. Moreover, by collaborating in instructional activities, they have the
opportunity not only to observe how colleagues approach instruction but also to ask and give
feedback. The present study also emphasizes that faculty staff must be empowered in taking an
active role in their professional development. A sustainable work-learning environment invites
or requires taking initiative and responsibility not only in daily work but also in professional de-
velopment. HRM policies in schools or universities play a vital role here, and also in how work is
organized (e.g. do faculty staff cooperate in project teams? Are these project teams self-steer-
ing?). Given the power of social informal learning for enhancing employability of faculty staff, in
addition to organizing formal training activities, HR policies in schools and universities might
focus on how to facilitate and support professional development of faculty staff through social
informal learning in order to increase their employability within and outside the organization.
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APPENDIX: ITEMS AND CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS
INFORMAL LEARNING FROM OTHERS
Scale Items Item content
Acting upon
Feedback Supervisor
3 Feedback from my supervisor makes me reflect.
Feedback from my supervisor motivates me to act.
The feedback I receive from my supervisor is helpful.
Acting upon Feedback
Colleague
3 Feedback from colleagues makes me reflect.
Feedback from colleagues motivates me to act.
The feedback I receive from my colleagues is helpful.
Information seeking 2 I attend lectures of guest speakers.
I meet employees from other organizations by
participating in conferences, workshops, and
lectures.
Help seeking 2 If I were having trouble understanding something at
work I would ask someone who could help me under-
stand the general ideas.
Getting help would be one of the first things I would
do if I were having trouble at work.
APPENDIX: ITEMS AND CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS (CONTINUED)
CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS
Note: Standardized estimates and errors are presented; CFI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.13, SRMR = 0.05
Acting upon
Feedback
supervisor
Acting upon
Feedback
colleague
External
information
seeking
Help seeking
S1
.16
S2
.27
S2
.49
C1
.20
C2
.28
C3
.69
I1
.75 .39
I2
.39
H1
.76
H2
.92 .72 .89 .56 .50 .78 .78 .49.85 .85

Chapter 4
Informal learning from others at work
as facilitator of employees’ innovative work behavior
In revision as:
Gerken, M., Messmann, G., Froehlich, D., Beausaert, S.,
Mulder, R., & Segers, M. (resubmitted after minor revision).
Informal learning at work as facilitator of employees’ innovative work behavior.
In G. Messmann, M. Segers, & F. Dochy (Eds.), Informal learning in the workplace.
Dordrecht: Springer.

CHAPTER 4 / 8786 / CHAPTER 4
ABSTRACT
Today, employees are expected to be innovative and to come up with new ideas and strategies
about products and processes. Limited research has been conducted that explores which spe-
cific social informal learning behaviors contribute to employees’ innovative work behavior. This
study aims to increase our understanding of informal learning from others by researching how
acting upon feedback, help seeking, and information seeking relate to employees’ innovative
work behavior in organizations. Analyses of data collected in different organizations are used to
illustrate the social side of informal learning and its relationship with innovative work behavior.
Understanding employees’ engagement in informal learning from others in organizations and the
relationship of these behaviors with innovative work behavior is crucial because the results will
indicate how to organize learning opportunities for employees in order to further develop their
innovative work behavior.
4.1 INTRODUCTION
Increased competition requires organizations to keep developing new ideas, products, proce-
dures, in short: to innovate (Damanpour & Schneider, 2006; Govaerts, Kyndt, Dochy, & Baert,
2011; Scott & Bruce, 1994). Innovation is described as “all intentional results of action (products
or processes) that bring about perceived change within the organization” (Krause, 2004, p.79).
These innovation processes are carried out by employees in the organization (Kanter, 1988;
West & Wallace, 1991). More specifically, the development of innovation is determined by a set
of tasks including the exploration of opportunities to generate ideas, and promoting and realiz-
ing these ideas in the organization (Janssen, 2000, 2003; Kanter, 1988; Messmann & Mulder,
2012; Scott & Bruce, 1994). Employees’ fulfilment of the tasks is referred to as innovative work
behavior (Messmann & Mulder, 2012). It includes all work activities that lead to the development
of innovations. Although organizations might stimulate employees to engage in innovative work
behavior, evidence on its determinants is required. The purpose of this study is to better under-
stand the factors that make employees engage in innovative work behavior in the workplace.
Literature suggests that in order to stimulate employees to engage in innovative work behavior,
they need to learn at work (Amabile, 1998; Carmeli & Spreitzer, 2009). Employees that develop
new competencies and capabilities through work are more likely to see the possibilities for new
ways of doing and trying things. Professional development is not only a result of participating
in formal training programs. A review by (Tynjälä, 2008) indicates that people learn at work
not only through formal education but by doing the job itself, through informal learning. In-
formal learning at work includes different informal learning behaviors such as interaction with
colleagues, reflection, reading professional literature, and collaboration (Froehlich, Beausaert,
Segers, & Gerken, 2014; Haider & Kreps, 2004; Lohman, 2006) that take place during daily work
(Marsick, Volpe, & Watkins, 1999; Tannenbaum, Beard, McNall, & Salas, 2010). Informal learning
is defined as learning that occurs as a by-product of other behaviors and at the employee’s own
initiative (Eraut, 2004; Marsick et al., 1999; Watkins & Marsick, 1992). A distinction is made
between individual informal learning behaviors and informal learning in social interaction (Kyndt
& Baert, 2013; Mulder, 2013). In this respect, Noe, Tews, and Marand (2013) refer to learning
from oneself and learning from non-interpersonal sources as individual informal learning and
learning from others as informal learning in social interaction. Learning from oneself refers to
reflection and experimenting with new ways of thinking and acting. Learning from non-inter-
personal sources implies learning behaviors such as looking up information in books or online.
Learning from others involves interaction with peers, supervisors and relevant others in the
learner’s network by information, help or feedback seeking behaviors. Although many authors
refer to these different types of informal learning and the related informal learning behaviors,
previous research measured informal learning in a rather vague way including a range of behav-
iors and did not clearly distinct between specific informal learning behaviors (Kwakman, 2003;
Lohman, 2003). For example, a clear distinction between cognitive informal learning behaviors,
learning from oneself and learning from others (e.g. feedback exchange with colleagues) was not
always made. Moreover, to date, research hardly offers insights in which specific informal learn-
ing behaviors contribute to employees’ engagement in innovative work behavior. The aim of this

CHAPTER 4 / 8988 / CHAPTER 4
study is to investigate the extent to which informal learning behaviors can foster employees’
innovative work behavior. In the following we first discuss innovative work behavior. Second,
we examine the role of informal learning for engaging in innovative work behavior. Afterwards,
we present the results of a study in which the relationships between different types of informal
learning and innovative work behavior were examined. We conclude with practical implications
and suggestions for future research.
4.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
4.2.1 INNOVATION
Innovation is a source for competitive advantage. In this respect, companies look for ways to
encourage employee-driven innovation. Innovation has been studied in several disciplines and
refers to all initiatives concerning the creation and application of useful ideas (Damanpour &
Schneider, 2006; Kanter, 1988; Ramamoorthy, Flood, Slattery, & Sardessai, 2005; Scott & Bruce,
1994; West & Farr, 1989) with the intention to benefit the organization (Damanpour & Schnei-
der, 2008; West & Farr, 1989). Yet, new ideas are not only developed in one specific unit of the
organization but are often generated at the work floor when dealing with or anticipating prob-
lems. In this respect, researchers in the domain of innovation have been addressing the concept
of innovative work behavior of employees (De Jong & Den Hartog, 2010; Janssen, 2003; Mess-
mann & Mulder, 2012).
4.2.2 THE CONCEPT OF INNOVATIVE WORK BEHAVIOR
Innovative work behavior is defined as “the sum of all physical and cognitive work activities
employees carry out in their work context, either individually or in social interaction, in order to
accomplish a set of interdependent innovation tasks required for the development of an inno-
vation” (Messmann & Mulder, 2012, p.45). Four dimensions of innovative work behavior can be
distinguished (Messmann & Mulder, 2012): Opportunity exploration refers to the recognition of
opportunities for change and improvement. Idea generation refers to the creation of new ideas,
generating solutions for problems but also searching out new working methods or instruments.
Idea promotion means to mobilize support and to acquire approval for innovative ideas and to
make important organizational members enthusiastic for innovative ideas. Idea realization is
defined as transforming innovative ideas into useful applications, introducing innovative ideas
into the work environment in a systematic way and evaluating the utility of innovative ideas
(Janssen, 2000; Kanter, 1988; Messmann & Mulder, 2010; West & Farr, 1989). These tasks are
partly dependent but do not necessarily follow each other (Dorenbosch, Engen, & Verhagen,
2005; Messmann & Mulder, 2013). For instance, when promoting ideas employees might see
new opportunities or generate different ideas.
4.2.3 INFORMAL LEARNING IN THE WORKPLACE
Informal learning behaviors are defined as “cognitive and physical learning activities (that lead
to cognitive activities) that can be deliberate or reactive, and that lead to competences but not
to formal qualifications“ (Mulder, 2013, p.52). In line with this, Noe et al. (2013, p. 3) define in-
formal learning “as learner initiated that involves action and reflection”. Both definitions imply
that informal learning is learner-initiated and provides opportunities for learner interaction in
the workplace. In this respect, Noe et al. (2013) propose to differentiate between learning from
oneself and learning from others. Learning from oneself refers to reflection on the effectiveness
and efficiency of one’s ideas. Informal learning from others entails talks and discussions be-
tween employees (Meirink, Meijer, & Verloop, 2007). Employees exchange ideas and information
as well as seek feedback and help (Froehlich et al., 2014).
The specific dimensions of innovative work behavior represent interdependent innovation tasks
that take place simultaneously and repeatedly (Dorenbosch et al., 2005; Messmann & Mulder,
2012). Consequently, behaviors that link these different innovation tasks and the corresponding
work activities employees carry out in the innovation process are crucial. Such linking behaviors
can be informal learning behaviors such as collaborating with colleagues or asking questions
(Cunningham & Iles, 2002). In the following we will elaborate on informal learning from others.
4.2.4 INFORMAL LEARNING FROM OTHERS
Informal learning from others is the proactive seeking for relevant others in the work-
place to share information and expertise. It has been argued to play a role for innova-
tive behavior (Haider & Kreps, 2004; Scott & Bruce, 1994) and has gained a lot of in-
terest recently (Conlon, 2004; Eraut, 2004; Grant & Ashford, 2008; Tynjälä, 2008).
Employees commonly learn in a social context by working together with colleagues,
participating during group activities and consulting each other (Eraut, 2004, 2007). In this
sense, informal learning from others has been operationalized in different concrete learning
behaviors in the workplace (Kyndt, Dochy, & Nijs, 2009).
A first proactive learning activity is acting upon feedback. Feedback is described by several
authors as a core informal learning activity (Marsick et al., 1999; Noe et al., 2013). Employees
seek and act upon feedback in order to identify the adequacy of one’s behavior to secure certain
goals. It has an evaluative character and might evoke negative emotions that in turn impede
dealing with or acting upon the feedback. If the feedback seeker does not act upon the feed-
back, no learning will happen. Therefore, acting upon feedback is a crucial phase in the feedback
seeking process. In this respect, research has showed that it is especially the extent to which an
employee is acting upon feedback that contributes to employee’s performance at work (Anseel,
Lievens, & Levy, 2007; Gupta, 1999; Salas & Rosen, 2010; Shute, 2008).

CHAPTER 4 / 9190 / CHAPTER 4
A second informal learning activity is help seeking. Based on a review of studies on informal
learning, Marsick and Watkins (2001) state that informal learning is a result of “everyday en-
counters while working and living in a given context. A new life experience may offer a chal-
lenge, a problem to be resolved... “ (p. 29). In order to deal with challenges and problems,
employees often engage in help seeking behavior. Help seeking behavior involves proactively
consulting others on task-related issues or asking for assistance at work; more than feedback
and information seeking, it is problem-focused (Karabenick & Knapp, 1988; Lee, 1997; Van der
Rijt, Van den Bossche, Van de Wiel, et al., 2013; Veenman, 2005). Research on help seeking be-
havior emphasizes that employees gather missing information, assess different alternatives to
solve problems, expand resources or receive social support (Lee, 1997; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997;
Van der Rijt, Van den Bossche, Van de Wiel, et al., 2013). It is seen as a key component to achieve
success (Hofmann, Lei, & Grant, 2009; Van der Rijt, Van den Bossche, Van de Wiel, et al., 2013)
and employees mainly seek help to solve problems and, in turn, to further develop their expertise
(Lee, 1997).
Third, employees engage in informal learning by proactively seeking information (Grant & Ash-
ford, 2008; Morrison, 2002). According to Mills, Knezek, and Khaddage (2014) information
seeking is a major component of facilitating the shift in formal to informal learning. This informal
learning activity is more neutral and refers to proactive searching for information or knowledge
from others (Borgatti & Cross, 2003; Cross & Sproull, 2004). The main goal is to gain specific
resources (Ashford & Cummings, 1983; Eraut, 2004; Froehlich et al., 2014; Karabenick, 2004;
Lee, 1997). Information seeking allows employees to understand factors in an organization that
lead to higher performance (Borgatti & Cross, 2003; Morrison, 2002).
There is some evidence that learning from others has an influence on employees’ innovative
work behavior (Carmeli & Spreitzer, 2009; Scott & Bruce, 1994). In an early study, Scott and
Bruce (1994) looked at the supervisor–employee relationship for stimulating innovative work
behavior. Employees that perceived the quality of the relationship with the supervisor as trustful
and supportive and thus sought help, reported to engage more in innovative work behavior. In
addition, good relationships among employees in the work group also positively affected inno-
vative work behavior. In a cross-sectional study among 172 employees from different organiza-
tions, Carmeli and Spreitzer (2009) found that trust and connectivity between colleagues were
important factors relating to innovative work behavior. High quality connectivity means that
colleagues are open to new ideas and proactively seek each other to discuss opportunities and
ideas (Carmeli & Spreitzer, 2009). Therefore, we expect that learning from others will stimulate
innovative work behavior. The present study focuses on employees’ informal learning behaviors,
i.e. acting upon feedback, help seeking and information seeking, and how these behaviors relate
to innovative work behavior. The following hypotheses are formulated:
Hypothesis 1: Acting upon feedback will have a significant positive effect on
employees’ innovative work behavior.
Hypothesis 2: Employees’ information seeking behavior will have a significant
positive effect on their innovative work behavior.
Hypothesis 3: Employees’ help seeking behavior will have a significant positive
effect on their innovative work behavior.
To address the research question and the corresponding hypotheses, a study was conducted in
which effects of learning from others on innovative work behavior was investigated. Employees
working in different sectors in the Netherlands represent the research setting for these studies.
Employees deal with all kinds of innovations and therefore represent a natural setting for testing
our hypotheses.
4.3 METHOD
4.3.1 SAMPLE AND DATA COLLECTION
In April 2014 an online questionnaire was distributed in a postgraduate program, linked to a
Business School in the South of the Netherlands as well as in the network of the postgraduate
school. The employees enrolled in the postgraduate school were working fulltime. These em-
ployees and persons in the broader network of the school (i.e. other employees working in or-
ganizations) were invited to participate anonymously via the website and the monthly electronic
newsletter.
The school and the broader network of the postgraduate school contain many employees work-
ing in different sectors: energy, IT, banking, consulting and health. After a period of four weeks,
493 employees filled in the questionnaire of which 243 answered the complete questionnaire.
A strict data cleaning procedure was conducted to delete respondents who filled out the ques-
tionnaire multiple times (i.e. based on IP address and the combination of background character-
istics) and persons with suspicious answer patterns (e.g. no variance in their responses). The
final sample consisted of N = 215 employees.
The mean age of the sample was 42.7 (SD = 11.78). Regarding gender, 45 percent of the respon-
dents were female. On average, 48 percent of the respondents worked between 1 and 3 years in
their current function. With regard to the number of job functions employees worked in so far,
68 percent had between 1 and 6 job functions. The majority (72 percent) had worked for 2 to 6
different organizations in the past including their current organization.

CHAPTER 4 / 9392 / CHAPTER 4
4.3.2 MEASURES
Innovative work behavior. Employees’ engagement in innovative work behavior was measured
with a self-report questionnaire adapted from Messmann and Mulder (2012). The questionnaire
consisted of the shortened version of 17 items and four dimensions tapping employees’ engage-
ment in opportunity exploration (4 items, sample item: “Keeping oneself informed about the
latest developments within the company”), idea generation (4 items, sample item: “Addressing
the things that have to change directly”), idea promotion (6 items, sample item: “Promoting new
ideas to colleagues in order to gain their active support”), and idea realization (3 items, sample
item: “Introducing colleagues to the application of a developed solution”). The items were rated
on a 6-point Likert scale. Respondents were instructed to state how adequately each item de-
scribed their actual behavior in the workplace.
Informal learning from others: Seeking for information and help and acting upon feedback. We
measured these informal learning behaviors with a previously validated composite scale of em-
ployees’ seeking for information and help, and acting upon feedback (Froehlich et al., 2014;
Gerken, Beausaert, & Segers, 2015). The scale consists of 10 items measured on a 5-point Likert
scale. A confirmatory factor analyses was performed among 895 employees in different sectors
in the original validation study. The results showed four informal learning behaviors: information
seeking (2 items, sample item: “I meet employees from other organizations by participating
in conferences, workshops, and lectures”), acting upon feedback from the supervisor (3 items,
sample item: “The feedback I receive from my supervisor motivates me to reflect”), acting upon
feedback from colleagues (3 items, sample item: “Feedback from colleagues makes me act”),
and help seeking (2 items, sample item: “Getting help would be one of the first things I would
do if I were having trouble at work”). We confirmed this factor structure also in our sample:
Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .98, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) =.05, and
Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) =.03 (Hu & Bentler, 1999). However, due to the
low reliability of the help seeking scale (α = .55), we removed the help seeking items from further
analyses. The remaining three scales show acceptable reliabilities (α = .79 - .89).
4.4 DATA ANALYSIS
A first exploration of the relationship between learning from others and innovative work behav-
ior, was done through correlational analysis and multiple hierarchical regression analyses with
opportunity exploration, idea generation, idea promotion, and idea realization as dependents.
For the hierarchical regression analyses, background characteristics were entered in step 1, and
learning from others in step 2. To complement the analysis and to investigate the three hypo-
theses, path analysis was applied with robust generalized least squares procedures based on the
significant direct effects that emerged from the hierarchical regression analyses (Knight, 2000).
When applicable, modification indices were inspected to apply changes (Wald and Lagrange
Multiplier tests). The path analysis was conducted in EQS version 6.2 (Bentler and Wu, 2002;
Bentler, 2005).
4.5 RESULTS
The descriptive statistics in Table 4.1 provide an overview of all variables. The data show that
the scales for all variables have acceptable internal consistencies. The mean score of acting upon
feedback from colleagues was the highest among the scales (M = 4.23, SD = .67) and information
seeking had the lowest score (M = 3.33, SD = 1.13). Concerning innovative work behavior, the
mean of opportunity exploration was slightly higher than the scores of the three other dimen-
sions (M = 4.78, SD = .83). The correlational analysis showed that all three informal learning be-
haviors were significantly positively related to all four dimensions of innovative work behavior.
Table 4.1 Descriptive statistics and correlations for learning from others and innovative work
behavior
M SD 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
1. Information seeking 3.33 1.13 (.79)
2. Acting upon
Feedback supervisor
4.08 .82 .20** (.89)
3. Acting upon
Feedback colleague
4.23 .67 .30** .61** (.87)
4. Opportunity
exploration
4.78 .83 .32** .31** .36** (.77)
5. Idea generation 4.72 .82 .24** .21** .35** .45** (.80)
6. Idea promotion 4.73 .86 .23** .28** .33** .47** .70** (.88)
7.Idea realization 4.34 1.10 .13* .18** .25** .44** .51** .64** (.85)
Note. N = 215. Values for Cronbach’s α are presented in parentheses in the diagonal of the correlation matrix
*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
Next, multiple hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to investigate relationships
that served as an input for the following path analysis. The results are depicted in Table 4.2.
Both information seeking and acting upon feedback colleagues had a significant effect on oppor-
tunity exploration, idea generation and idea promotion. The effect of acting upon feedback from
supervisor was not significant. Therefore, acting upon feedback supervisor was not integrated
in the follow-up path analysis. The number of jobs was positively related to opportunity explora-
tion and idea realization. In addition, the number of organizations was negatively related to idea
generation and idea realization.

CHAPTER 4 / 9594 / CHAPTER 4
Table 4.2 Multiple hierarchical regression analysis
INDEPENDENT VARIABLES DEPENDENT VARIABLES
Opportunity
exploration
Idea
generation
Idea
promotion
Idea
realization
Step 1
Gender .08 -.01 -.01 -.11
Age .08 .16 .02 -.01
Number of jobs .19* .16 .15 .26**
Number of organizations worked for -.14 -.24** -.17 -.29**
Years in current function .06 -.07 -.12 .05
Step 2
Information seeking .24** .16* .14* .07
Acting upon feedback supervisor .15 .00 .13 .05
Acting upon feedback colleagues .18* .28** .19* .16
Step 1R 0.02 .02 .01 .05
Step 2 R .18 .13 .12 .09
R .21 .16 .15 .13
Note. N= 215. Standardized regression coefficients (Beta) are reported
*p < 0.05 , **p < 0.01
A path analysis was conducted in order to investigate the three hypotheses. Based on the re-
sults of the hierarchical regression analyses, we could identify the relationships between two
independent variables (information seeking, acting upon feedback colleague), two background
variables (number of job functions, number of organizations) and the four tasks of innovative
work behavior. Non-significant parameters were removed and modifications were implemented
in two areas as suggested by the Wald test: the relations between the number of jobs and op-
portunity exploration and the relation between the number of organizations and idea generation
were dropped. The correlations between the independent variables ranged from -0.02 and 0.62.
The relationships are presented in Figure 4.1.
Information seeking, and acting upon feedback from colleagues positively affected opportunity
exploration. Acting upon feedback from colleagues and information seeking also affected idea
generation and idea promotion. The results suggest that learning from others is especially im-
portant for the act of exploring and generating ideas. There was no effect on idea realization.
The results show that all two behaviors are related to innovative work behavior. Thus, the re-
sults confirm hypotheses 1 and 2. No evidence could be obtained for hypothesis 3 since the help
seeking scale was removed from further analysis due to low reliability.
Opportunity
exploration
Idea
generation
Idea
promotion
Idea
realization
Information
seeking
Acting upon
Feedback
colleagues
Number
of jobs
Number of
organzations
R2=.12* R2=.08* R2=.06* R2=.04*
.21* .13* .12* .22* .22* .17* .23* -.21*
Figure 4.1 Standardized estimates effects of learning from others and background
characteristics on innovative work behavior. Only significant paths are displayed.
Note. *p < .05, **p < .01. N = 215.
Looking at the background characteristics, we found that the number of jobs an employee had
during work life was significantly positively related to idea realization indicating that the more
functions an employee held, the more they indicate to transform ideas into useful applications.
Interestingly, the number of organizations an employee worked for was significantly negatively
related to idea realization. This means that employees that worked for more organizations find
it difficult to realize idea and put them into practice in the organization.
4.6 DISCUSSION
The aim of this study was to investigate how acting upon feedback supervisor, acting upon
feedback colleague, information seeking, help seeking can support employees’ engagement in
innovative work behavior. We hypothesized a direct relation between these behaviors and all
dimensions of innovative work behavior. However, the role of help seeking could not be tested
due to low internal consistency of the measurement scale.
The results of the study show that two learning from others-components, that is, acting upon
feedback from colleagues and information seeking are significantly related to opportunity ex-
ploration, the first dimension of innovative work behavior. The results underline the import-
ance of proactively seeking information and using the feedback of colleagues to recognize and
explore opportunities for change and improvement. Acting upon feedback from colleagues and
information seeking also relates to idea generation showing that the quality of feedback is im-

CHAPTER 4 / 9796 / CHAPTER 4
portant to substantiate an idea. Next, acting upon feedback from supervisors was not related
to innovative work behavior. Employees turn to their colleagues and use their feedback as well
as seek information in order to promote their idea. Colleagues might be perceived as a credible
source for feedback and are approached more easily than for example supervisors (Van der Rijt,
Van den Bossche, & Segers, 2013). The lack of relationship could also be explained by the fact
that supervisors do not stimulate innovative work behavior. In this respect, previous research
recognized the influence of the learning climate on informal learning (Marsick, Volpe, & Watkins,
1999). Therefore, future research could investigate if the learning climate plays a role for infor-
mal learning from others and in turn innovative work behavior. Prior research on innovative work
behavior has focused on the importance of connectivity among colleagues in a more general way
(Carmeli & Spreitzer, 2009). Literature also suggests that contact and interaction with external
others brings new perspectives to one’s mindset (Kanter, 1988) and in turn increases innovative
work behavior (De Jong & Den Hartog, 2010). Furthermore, the study reveals that learning from
others does not affect idea realization, the fourth dimension of innovative work behavior.
In addition, the number of job functions is positively related to idea realization. It seems that
employees who worked in different job functions are more likely to know the structures in an
organization necessary to transform innovative ideas into useful applications and evaluating
the usefulness of that idea. A certain level of experience in different job functions might help to
transform ideas into useful applications. Interestingly, the number of organizations an employee
worked for is negative related to idea realization. In other words, employees who have worked
in many different organizations are less likely to realize ideas and put them into practice in the
organization. This might be because employees who change organizations are unfamiliar with
the procedures, do not have an elaborated network in the organization and lack the necessary
knowledge to realize ideas within existing structures. This opposes prior research stating that
experiences from working in different organizations increases innovative outcomes (Taylor &
Greve, 2006).
4.7 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
The findings are subject to a number of limitations that should be addressed in future research.
First, the results of the studies are limited to work contexts that are similar to the works context
of this study characterized by rapidly changing work environments and the need to continuously
improve their products or services to secure long-term success and survival. Innovative work
behavior is a context-bound construct meaning that innovative tasks are integrated in the work
context in which they are carried out (cf. Messmann & Mulder, 2012). Cross-validation studies
offer the opportunity to further examine innovative work behavior. Second, the help seeking
scale was removed from the analysis due to low reliability. Nevertheless, future studies should
measure help seeking as previous studies have found acceptable reliability coefficients (Froeh-
lich et al., 2014; Gerken et al., 2015; Karabenick, 2003). Third, self-report measures were used
to assess informal learning, and innovative work behavior. This provides the advantage that
employees indicate most properly to what extent they were engaged in this behavior. However,
using different data sources would be beneficial to prevent common method bias (Conway &
Lance, 2010). In this respect, if in a given work context supervisors are closely monitoring the
daily work of their subordinates they should be considered as an additional data source. A more
objective measure of innovative work behavior could be attained through taking the number of
innovations per employee into account. Last, future research would also benefit from further
develop and disentangle the concept of informal learning during daily work activities and inno-
vation processes.
4.8 PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
Organizations can use the research results to pay attention to learning from others both during
daily work and in conjunction with ongoing innovation processes to enhance employees’ en-
gagement in innovative work behavior. For instance, it is important to realize that acting upon
feedback of colleagues, and information seeking contribute to opportunity exploration. A work
environment that stimulate employees to easily connect, to discuss opportunities for innovation
and explore ideas, makes employees valuable by seeking opportunities to work with others and
tapping into the expertise those colleagues possess to help carry out innovative tasks. Super-
visors could stimulate this development by acting as broker in the beginning of the innovation
process. Colleagues should also be aware of their feedback to employees during the innovation
process. Likewise, organizations should illustrate how employees can use informal learning as a
powerful tool to smoothen the accomplishment of work tasks during innovation processes. For
instance, supervisors may encourage employees to examine their performance and underlying
assumptions during and after work tasks. This could be done by supporting their ideas through
feedback but also by providing on-demand support for their questions. The results of these stu-
dies highlight the vital role of learning from others to enhance innovative work behavior.

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Chapter 5
Profiles of employees’ engagement in proactive
learning from others and its relation
with their career trajectory*
Submitted for publication as:
Gerken, M., Beausaert, S., & Segers, M. (submitted). Profiles of employees’ engagement in
proactive learning from others in the workplace and its relation with their career trajectory.
Vocations and Learning.
*This study was partially funded by
NSI (Network Social Innovation)

CHAPTER 5 / 107106 / CHAPTER 5
ABSTRACT
This study reports on employees’ engagement in proactive learning from others, more specifi-
cally on three behaviors: feedback seeking, information seeking and help seeking. Insufficient
empirical attention has been devoted to determining if employees prefer certain behaviors over
others. Furthermore, this study also reports on the influence of work experience and job mobility
on employee’s engagement in learning from others. Based on latent profile analysis, the results
revealed three profiles of learning from others and demonstrate that employees who stay longer
in a job seem to have a preference for acting upon feedback from their colleagues in their job
function and the involved tasks. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
5.1 INTRODUCTION
In the past years, the nature and idea of career development has been changed considerably.
Boundaryless careers emerged that forced employees to take responsibility for their own career
development (De Vos, De Hauw, & Van der Heijden, 2011; Fugate, Kinicki, & Ashforth, 2004;
Tannenbaum, 2001). For example, employees are not bound to a single employer anymore, take
on new jobs within or outside organizations, and perform diversified tasks (Rodrigues, Guest,
Oliveira, & Alfes, 2015). The management of such careers depends on proactivity – a willingness
to anticipate changes and be flexible in order to choose across a variety of options and possible
career directions (Crant, 2000; Carbery & Garavan, 2005; Van der Heijden, 2002; Fuller &
Marler, 2009).
One way for employees to express proactive behavior is learning from others at work (Ashforth,
Sluss, & Saks, 2007; Saks, Gruman, & Cooper-Thomas, 2011). Learning from others consists of
different activities characterized by interactions with colleagues and supervisors in the work-
place resulting in professional development (Eraut, 2007; Richter, Kunter, Klusmann, Lüdtke,
& Baumert, 2011; Van der Heijden, Boon, Van der Klink, & Meijs, 2009). Studies indicated that
interaction with others at work forms one of the most significant sources of learning compared
to individual learning activities such as searching the internet or reading books (Billet, 2004;
Kyndt, Dochy, & Nijs, 2009; Lohman, 2006). Recent research has made important progress
in identifying different behaviors that are part of learning from others (Froehlich, Beausaert,
Segers, & Gerken, 2014; Gerken, Beausaert, & Segers, 2015; Kyndt et al., 2009). Especially three
behaviors have emerged: information seeking (Morrison, 2002), seeking advice and help (Bam-
berger, 2009; Van der Rijt, Van den Bossche, Van de Wiel, et al., 2013), and seeking feedback
from others (Ashford, 1986). The three behaviors can occur concurrently; however, most em-
pirical studies have addressed them separately (Ashford & Cummings, 1983; Bamberger, 2009;
Morrison, 2002; Borgatti & Cross, 2003). Yet, current research demonstrated significant but
low correlations between the three behaviors (Froehlich, Beausaert, & Segers, 2015; Froehlich
et al., 2014; Gerken et al., 2015). Moreover, the study of Froehlich et al. (2014) indicated that
employees scored higher and thus had a preference for acting upon feedback and less for infor-
mation seeking. Hence, employees may be inclined to one or other of these behaviors depend-
ing on their career trajectory. In support of this assumption, factors such as job mobility and a
higher work experience have been identified to foster learning from others (Eraut, 2004; Miller
& Jablin, 1991). For instance, a newcomer in an organization is more likely to seek information
and feedback to compensate the initial uncertainty feeling, whereas employees with more work
experience face a higher social cost in asking for information and therefore will seek less infor-
mation (Ashforth et al., 2007; Miller & Jablin, 1991; Saks et al., 2011).
The current study makes a contribution to the literature by addressing the three learning behaviors
jointly. This is done by identifying employees’ preferences. Until now, there is no prior evidence
outlining different profiles of employees’ engagement in learning from others. Therefore, re-
search is needed that specifically investigates how the three behaviors are related to each oth-
er. Next, this study examines the influence of work experience and job mobility on employees’

CHAPTER 5 / 109108 / CHAPTER 5
preferences. The results can be used to reconsider the design of the work environment or pro-
fessional development programs and lead to a more refined understanding of how learning from
others can be supported in the workplace.
5.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
5.2.1 LEARNING FROM OTHERS AT WORK: ACTING UPON FEEDBACK,
INFORMATION SEEKING, AND HELP SEEKING
Workplace learning is often a collaborative or social process (Boud & Middleton, 2003). For em-
ployees, interaction with others such as colleagues and supervisors is the main source of learn-
ing (Doornbos, Simons, & Denessen, 2008; Eraut, 2007; Koopmans, Doornbos, & Eekelen, 2006).
The question, however, remains which specific behaviors do employees engage in when learning
from others. Three activities have attracted considerable attention in the past years and have
been identified as crucial: proactive engagement in feedback from others, sharing knowledge
and information with others as well as seeking advice (Kyndt et al., 2009; Bamberger, 2009;
Ashford, 1986). These activities share similarities as they all emphasize proactive learning from
others to obtain specific information. Information seeking relates to the proactive search for
information or knowledge (Borgatti & Cross, 2003). Feedback seeking and help seeking can be
considered as specific types of information seeking (Bamberger, 2009). Feedback seeking refers
to the proactive search for feedback and concerns information about the self (Anseel, Lievens,
& Levy, 2007). Therefore, feedback is often more emotional (Ashford, Blatt, & Vande Walle,
2003). Help seeking is focused on problems and involves intentional actions (Cornally & McCa-
rthy, 2011). Only a few prior studies have been measuring the activities jointly. For instance, a
study by Froehlich et al. (2014) showed that acting upon feedback, help seeking and information
seeking had different effects on dimensions of employees’ employability. Information and help
seeking predicted occupational expertise, anticipation and optimization, and personal flexibility.
Acting upon feedback affected the dimension anticipation and optimization. Moreover, former
studies show low correlations between the three activities (Froehlich et al., 2015; Gerken et al.,
2015). Building on these findings, this study focuses on employees’ preferences for engaging
in information seeking, help seeking and acting upon feedback. In the following these three
activities will be explained in more detail.
Acting upon feedback
Ashford (1986) defines feedback seeking as a “conscious devotion of effort toward determining
the correctness and adequacy of activities for attaining valued end states” (p.466). More spe-
cifically, feedback seeking is a process that involves the search for feedback and using the feed-
back afterwards. From a learning perspective, using or acting upon the self-solicited feedback,
is the most important step in the feedback seeking process. It allows employees to correct their
behavior in order to learn from it (Ashford, Blatt, & VandeWalle, 2003).
The motives that induce people to engage in feedback seeking behavior are: to understand the
environment, making self-evaluations, and, to develop and sustain feelings of competence (Ash-
ford & Cummings, 1983). Individuals can obtain feedback through proactive behavior to gather
relevant information from colleagues or supervisors about their own behavior (Ashford et al.,
2003; Ashford, 1986; Gupta, 1999). In this way, employees commonly desire to master the envi-
ronment in order to achieve their goals to advance their career, being appreciated by colleagues
(Grant & Ashford, 2008) and for socializing with colleagues (Ashford & Cummings, 1983). In
addition, feedback provides information about the relevance of the goals in the organization. In
short, feedback solicited from relevant others represents a valuable source of information about
the behavior of the feedback seeker as well as about his/her organization (Ashford & Cummings,
1983; Gupta, 1999). A study of Tannenbaum (1997) claimed the pivotal role of the supervisor in
acting upon feedback and in improving continuous learning. With respect to the effects of feed-
back seeking and more concretely the for learning important step of acting upon the feedback
sought, evidence shows that acting upon feedback is positively related to the career develop-
ment of the employees (Ashford et al., 2003; Atwater & Brett, 2005; London & Smither, 2002;
Smither, London, & Reilly, 2005).
Information seeking
Miller and Jablin (1991) define information seeking as “deliberate, conscious efforts” for ob-
taining knowledge (p. 101). In general, information seeking refers to the proactive behavior of
an individual to compensate for a lack of information (Lee, 1997; Morrison, 2002). Information
can be sought from non-personal sources like web searches and professional literature as well
as from personal sources, in interaction with others. The present study takes into account the
personal sources of information seeking. Potential sources of information include management
or supervisors and co-workers, other member of the organization such as secretaries, or external
members such as clients (Miller & Jablin, 1991). Information seeking is an important source for
learning how to perform ones tasks, clarifying ones role within the organization, understanding
the organizational culture, and to become socially integrated within ones work group. Usual-
ly, newcomers tend to seek more information from supervisor and co-workers about their new
tasks (Ashford, 1986; Miller & Jablin, 1991). However, information seeking is a concept not only
relevant for newcomers but more generally functions as a mean to stay up-to-date and informed
about the developments within ones professional field or to gain relevant information from col-
leagues or supervisors, necessary to solve uncertainties (Hofmann, Lei, & Grant, 2009). The
effect of information seeking has been demonstrated in prior research (Cross, Rice, & Parker,
2001). People benefit from information seeking in different ways such as solutions to a problem,
increased knowledge about a task, problem reformulation, or validation of plans or solutions
(Cross et al., 2001; Cross & Sproull, 2004).
Help seeking
Help seeking is defined as an activity in which individuals deliberately approach others
whom they consider to be better capable or having the resources required to solve a problem
(Karabenick & Knapp, 1988). Helping describes efforts to seek assistance and aid from others. It
is a proactive behavior through asking others for their assistance, support or advice (Hofmann

CHAPTER 5 / 111110 / CHAPTER 5
et al., 2009; Van der Rijt, Van den Bossche, Van de Wiel, et al., 2013). Employees in need of help
define their problem, and proactively seek for those individuals in their work environment that
have the resources to support them to find a solution to their problem (Lee 1997). Therefore,
it is a concept similar to information seeking and feedback seeking. Yet, it is distinct because
help seeking results from the encounter of a specific problem whereas information and feedback
seeking are also relevant in the absence of an explicit problem (Lee 1997).
Prior research showed that help seeking depends to a great extent on the quality of their re-
lationship to potential help providers (Van der Rijt et al. 2013b). Employees are most likely to
seek help from people they trust and can access easily, as help seeking also entails the risk of
revealing one’s weakness and incompetence. Hofmann et al. (2009) showed that help seekers
tend to consult more frequently the experts, since these are considered to be a higher quality
source of help. However, the study also demonstrates that accessibility and trust influence the
help seeking activity, suggesting that there are psychological and interpersonal factors that
contribute to determine from which source the help is sought. Regarding the effects of help
seeking, literature suggest that it is an important strategy of self-regulation to promote learn-
ing (Karabenick & Knapp, 1991), improve performance and increase understanding of a certain
topic (Butler & Neuman, 1995; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997).
Although the concept of acting upon feedback, information seeking, and help seeking share sim-
ilarities, most research has been focused only on one of them. As a consequence, much is known
about the specific activities separately but comparatively little is known about the preferences
that characterize employee’s engagement in learning from others. Still, questions such as “Do
people have a preference for certain learning activities?” have been asked before in other do-
mains, namely, in the domain of individual learning styles and learning strategies (Berings, Poell,
& Simons, 2005; Kolb, 1984; Mumford, 2002). Researchers in this field discovered that individ-
uals differ in their learning strategies and started to make learning profiles (Bernsen, Segers, &
Tillema, 2009; Kolb & Kolb, 2005). Learning profiles group common ways that individuals learn.
Some may have a preference for a certain learning activity while using other activities to a lesser
extent. Yet, the same question regarding preferences can be raised for proactive learning from
others given the increasing evidence that learners act based on their own goals (Tannenbaum,
Beard, McNall, & Salas, 2010). In support of this question, Grant and Ashford (2008) noted that
we have devoted insufficient attention to the different profiles that characterize employee’s
engagement in proactive activities. Moreover, prior research showed significant but low correla-
tions between the three activities (Froehlich et al., 2015, 2014; Gerken et al., 2015). The study
of Froehlich et al. (2014) indicated that employees scored higher and thus had a preference for
acting upon feedback and less for information seeking. This study takes research a step further
to determine whether different learning profiles of learning from others can be distinguished.
Therefore, we formulate the following research question:
Research question 1: Can different profiles regarding the engagement in learning from
others (i.e. information seeking, seeking help, and acting upon feedback) be identified?
5.2.2 MOTIVES TO ENGAGE IN LEARNING FROM OTHERS: WORK EXPERIENCE
AND JOB MOBILITY
Employees may choose to engage in different learning activities from others depending on the
situation. Prior research, for example, found that employees who experience novel or challeng-
ing situations through new job functions or a variety of new tasks tend to participate more in
workplace learning (Billett, 2002; Doornbos et al., 2008; Fuller & Unwin, 2004). Ashforth et
al. (2007) argued that employees need to learn the processes and procedures coming along
with the new task or job. Much research on the motives to engage in information seeking, help
seeking and acting upon feedback has been done among newcomers in organizations (Morrison,
2002; Hays & Williams, 2011). With respect to the specific learning activities of help seeking
and information seeking, former research has been indicating the role of instrumental motives
(Bamberger, 2009; Miller & Jablin, 1991; Morrison, 1993) in contexts that are high on contextual
uncertainty (Morrison, 2002; Van der Rijt, Van den Bossche, Van de Wiel, et al., 2013), novelty
(Morrison, 1993), and change (Bamberger, 2009). Seeking help and information can reduce un-
certainty regarding one’s tasks or when encountering problems at work. New employees seek
different types of information depending on the kind of information needed and the hierarchical
position of the colleague whom they are seeking information from. Specifically, research high-
lighted that technical information was asked to supervisors whereas social information was
asked to co-workers (Morrison, 1993). Finally, Morrison (1993) confirmed that not only newcom-
ers but also employees holding a job for a longer time who are unsure about their performance
tend to seek more information from others. Thus, job mobility, that is changing jobs or organiza-
tions, might drive employees to engage in information seeking and help seeking.
Regarding feedback seeking behavior, employees seek to obtain information or feedback but
can also refrain from seeking when they feel it is potentially threatening to their ego (Ashford
et al., 2003). Former studies indicated that employees seek feedback to reduce uncertainty and
anxiety regarding ambiguous situations and the performance contingencies in a new environ-
ment (Ashford & Cummings, 1983). Employees use the information gained to adapt and improve
their job performance and satisfaction (Ashford, 2003; Van der Rijt, Van den Bossche, & Segers,
2013), evaluate their progress, change their behavior or to increase their self-awareness (Ash-
ford, 1986). However, context plays a role. Employees that feel psychologically safe in their work
environment in the sense that they believe that problems can be brought up and mistakes can
be made, tend to ask more feedback from their colleagues (Van der Rijt, Van den Bossche, Van
de Wiel, Segers, & Gijselaers, 2012). Yet, as employees become more familiarized with the new
work environment, feedback and information seeking become less frequent as those activities
might undermine their confidence (Ashford & Cummings, 1983). Research on work experience
showed that employees with a higher work experience have a particular approach to and partic-
ipation in learning (Felstead et al., 2005; Fenwick, 2012). Work experience was reported to be
helpful in focusing on relevant information resulting in higher learning behavior (Maurer & Weiss,
2010; Paloniemi, 2006). In contrast, employees with more work experience gained increased job
knowledge and skills over time and invested less in learning from others (Richter et al., 2011).
They better understand how well they are doing on the job and, as a consequence, they seek less

CHAPTER 5 / 113112 / CHAPTER 5
feedback, information or help (Berg & Chyung, 2008).
Empirical studies such as mentioned above have helped to develop a better understanding of
factors influencing the three learning activities. For example, uncertainty predicts higher levels
of information seeking and feedback seeking behavior (Ashford et al., 2003). Given the findings,
we assume that work experience and job mobility have an influence on employee’s preferences.
This study focuses on how work experience and job mobility, i.e. having worked in different jobs
as well as organizations, relates to employees learning profiles. Thus, we formulate the following
research question:
Research question 2: How are employees’ work experience and job mobility related to
their learning from others profile?
5.3 METHOD
5.3.1 PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE
Data were collected by means of an online survey on learning in the workplace among employ-
ees. Employees working in different sectors, such as energy, IT, metal, consulting and health
care were invited to participate anonymously via a website (www.fl2i.com) between April and
October 2014. After filling in the online survey measuring feedback seeking, information seek-
ing, help seeking, and career trajectory characteristics, participants received immediate feed-
back on how to optimize their learning in the workplace. In total, 387 employees started the
questionnaire of which 369 completed the questionnaire. We conducted a strict data cleaning
procedure and removed respondents who completed the questionnaire several times (i.e. based
on IP address and the combination of personal characteristics). In addition, respondents with
suspicious answer patterns were deleted (i.e. no variance in their responses) which resulted in a
final sample of 355 respondents. The respondents were between 18 and 66 years old (M = 41.85,
SD = 11.73). The sample consisted of 157 (42.5 percent) men and 193 (53.7 percent) women. On
average, participants had 18.37 years of work experience, worked for 3.76 different organiza-
tions, and had 4.76 different job functions on average.
5.3.2 MEASURES
The online survey consisted of 15 questions measuring the learning from others construct as
well as career trajectory characteristics, including the career trajectory. Learning from others
was measured with an existing questionnaire based on Froehlich et al. (2014). The scale consists
of 10 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“completely disagree”) to 5 (“com-
pletely agree”) measuring four activities: acting upon feedback supervisor, acting upon feed-
back colleague, information seeking, and help seeking. We confirmed the previously validated
4-factor structure in our sample (RMSEA = 0.05, X/df = 2.17, CFI = .98, TLI = 0.97, SRMR = .03
(Hu & Bentler, 1999)). The four scales had acceptable reliabilities, with Cronbach’s alpha ranging
from 0.61 to 0.81. Sample items are “feedback from my supervisor makes me reflect” (acting
upon feedback supervisor, 3 items), “the feedback I receive from my colleagues is helpful” (act-
ing upon feedback colleague, 3 items), “If I were having trouble understanding working material
I would ask someone who could help me understand the general ideas” (help seeking, 2 items),
and “I meet employees from other organizations by participating in conferences, workshops, and
lectures” (information seeking, 2 items).
Career trajectory characteristics included the number of work experience in years, the number
of job functions employees had so far, and the number of organizations employees worked for
in total.
Control variables. Age and gender were selected as control variables. We asked participants for
their chronological age. Gender was coded as women = 0 and men = 1.
5.4 Data analysis
Before answering the research questions, the data were inspected for normality and homogene-
ity of variance. Next, bivariate correlation analysis was used to explore the relations between the
variables. In this study we were particularly interested in determining the relationship between
the type of learning profile and employees’ career trajectory characteristics. First, learning pro-
files were generated using latent profile analysis. This statistical analysis is a person-centered
method that estimates the number of classes of an underlying continuous latent variable and
which accounts for the relationships between observed variables (Magidson & Vermunt, 2002;
Nylund, Asparouhov, & Muthén, 2007). This method creates subgroups of respondents who
answer in a similar way to the observed variables of acting upon feedback supervisor, acting
upon feedback colleague, information seeking and help seeking. The model parameters include
class membership probabilities. The model fit was assessed using Bayesian Information Confir-
mation (BIC) and entropy (Magidson & Vermunt, 2002). Entropy indicates to which extent the
latent classes are distinct from one another and a number close to 1 indicates clear classifica-
tion. The analysis was conducted using Mplus 7 (Muthén & Muthén, 2012).
Second, once the suitable latent class structure of learning from others was determined, using
the fit criteria, the latent class model parameters were fixed in order to conduct multinomial
logistic regression. This analysis predicts the probability that an observation falls into one of
the three categories of learning from others based on the career trajectory characteristics. We
calculated odds ratio (with 95% confidence intervals) that compares classes to the baseline
class. We examined the odds ratio to identify those employees that had a higher probability of
being in a certain class, given their career trajectory characteristics.

CHAPTER 5 / 115114 / CHAPTER 5
5.5 RESULTS
5.5.1 PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS
Table 5.1, which presents correlations between learning from others and career trajectory char-
acteristics, shows strong relations between the four learning behaviors (r = 0.13, p < 0.05 to
r = 0.47, p < 0.01). The number of jobs was significantly positively correlated to acting upon
feedback from colleagues and information seeking. Furthermore, work experience was signifi-
cantly positively correlated with information seeking and negatively correlated to acting upon
feedback from the supervisor. This shows that employees with more experience act less likely
upon feedback received from their supervisors. There was a positive correlation between the
number of organizations and help seeking and gender correlated positively with acting upon
feedback supervisor and help seeking. Other relations between learning and career trajectory
characteristics were not significant.
Table 5.1 Descriptive statistics and correlations for learning from others and career trajectory
characteristics
M SD 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.
1. Age 41.85 11.73
2. Gender 0.55 0.49 -.18**
3. Work
experience
18.37 11.68 .92** -.17**
4. Number
of jobs
4.76 2.52 .56** -.21** .60**
5. Number of
organisations
3.76 2.12 .33** -.09 .35** .63**
6. Acting upon
feedback
supervisor
4.06 0.68 -.13* .13** -.14** -.02 -.07 (.81)
7. Acting upon
feedback
colleague
4.15 0.50 .04 .01 .04 .14** .05 .50** (.71)
8. Information
seeking
3.78 0.91 .12* -0.3 .14** .20** .07 .14** .26** (.78)
9. Help seeking 3.87 0.73 .02 .14** -.01 .07 .13** .25** .45** .22** (.61)
Note. N = 355. Values for Cronbach’s α are presented in parentheses in the diagonal of the correlation matrix
*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01
5.5.2 LATENT CLASS ANALYSIS
Next, we addressed the types of learning profiles among employees. Latent profile analysis
showed that a three-class structure was the best solution as this had the lowest Bayesian Infor-
mation Criterion (BIC 2790, entropy 0.89). The certainty of the classification for the three-class
solution was high, as indicated by the average latent class probabilities (Table 5.2). For example,
employees who are classified to be most likely in latent Class 1 have a .94 probability of falling
into Class 1, a .06 probability of falling into Class 2, and a .00 probability to fall in Class 3. Similar
probabilities were obtained for Class 2 and Class 3.
Table 5.2 Latent profile analysis: average class probabilities for learning from others
AVERAGE CLASS PROBABILITY
Class membership Class 1 Class 2 Class 3
C1 .94 .06 .00
C2 .01 .95 .03
C3 .00 .05 .94
Note. N = 355
Class 1 representatives are engaging in all four learning behaviors (Table 5.3). These employees
indicate to participate frequently in acting upon feedback, information and help seeking. Class
2 represents the employees that foremost act upon feedback from their colleagues. They score
lower on information seeking and help seeking but report to seek and use feedback from their
colleagues. Finally Class 3 representatives have a preference for acting upon feedback from their
supervisor and colleagues although they score lower on both items. They do choose to seek less
information and help.
Table 5.3 Latent class means and standard deviations for learning from others
CLASS 1 CLASS 2 CLASS 3
25.35% 68.73% 5.92%
Item Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
1. Acting upon feedback colleague 4.78 .03 4.02 .02 3.14 .10
2. Acting upon feedback supervisor 4.63 .06 3.92 .03 3.50 .18
3. Help seeking 4.33 .07 3.77 .04 2.91 .22
4. Information seeking 4.05 .09 3.76 .06 2.76 .28
Cases per class 90 244 21

CHAPTER 5 / 117116 / CHAPTER 5
5.5.3 MULTINOMIAL REGRESSION ANALYSIS
Table 5.4 shows the results of the multinomial logistic regression analysis. The number of jobs
significantly negatively predicted whether employees belong to class 2 or class 3, b = -0.18,
Wald χ (1) = 5.19, p < .05. This means that the higher number of jobs one employee had, the less
likely the employee belongs to class 2 (acting upon feedback colleagues). Next, work experience
significantly predicted whether employees belong to class 2 or class 3, b = 0.03, Wald χ (1) =
4.58, p < .05. Employees are more likely to act upon feedback from their colleagues (class 2) if
they have more work experience.
Table 5.4 Multinomial logistic regression analysis of latent classes and career trajectory
characteristics
95% CI for Odds Ratio
B (SE) LOWER ODDS RATIO UPPER
Class 1 vs. Class 3
Intercept -.68 (.53)
Work Experience -.04 (.03) .90 .96 1.02
Number of jobs -.14 (.17) . 61 .86 1.22
Number of organisations -.08 (.16) .78 1.08 1.51
Class 2 vs. Class 3
Intercept .84 (.30)*
Work Experience .03 (.01)* 1.00 1.03 1.06
Number of jobs -.18 (.08)* .70 .83 .97
Number of organisations .07 (.07) .92 1.07 1.26
Note. N = 355. R = .04 (Cox & Snell), .06 (Nagelkerke). Model χ (8) = 17.45, p < .05
*p < 0.05
5.6 DISCUSSION
Earlier research into information seeking, help seeking and acting upon feedback showed that
each activity has value in certain situations and for certain purposes. The current study exa-
mined these behaviors jointly to detect employees’ preferences and their relationship with work
experience and job mobility. We identified employees’ preferences in their information seeking,
help seeking and acting upon feedback behavior using latent profile analysis. The results revea-
led three classes of proactive learning from others. Employees in the first class engage in all
learning behaviors above the overall sample average. These employees do not make a difference
between information seeking, help seeking and acting upon feedback, they invest in all of them.
In the second class employees engage foremost in acting upon feedback from colleagues and
less in information seeking and help seeking. This implies that employees would be less likely
to seek for help or information in a given situation. Employees in the third class have a prefe-
rence for acting upon feedback. They do not make a difference between feedback received from
supervisors or colleagues and seem to act upon feedback given by both parties. It seems that
employees in class 1 use the full potential from all three learning from others behaviors whereas
employees in class 2 and 3 make suboptimal use of the value of learning from others.
The second research question examined relevant career trajectory predictors (work experience
and job mobility) for employees’ engagement in learning behaviors. Employees that change jobs
less often are more likely they belong to the second class. Less mobility and more work experi-
ence apparently lead to less information seeking and help seeking. A possible reason could be
that employees have gained a lot of knowledge and insights in their job and tasks. At the same
time, employees are more likely to act upon feedback from their colleagues. In other words, em-
ployees with more work experience and that stay longer in one job function get to know their
colleagues better and are prone to seek and act upon feedback from them. That may be due to
the fact that employees might have more confidence and therefore the tendency to seek evalua-
tive feedback and use it. The results might indicate the role of psychological safety for learning
as demonstrated by Edmondson and Lei (2014). Psychological safety describes the perceptions
of being comfortable to take interpersonal risks. It can help to explain why employees feel se-
cure and capable of seeking and using evaluative feedback – a learning behavior that might be
threatening otherwise.
5.7 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
A number of limitations of the current study deserve some discussion. First, the study has been
conducted within a wide range of organizations. Although this variation of organization en-
hances the possibility to generalize the findings of the study, it does not take into account the
various work contexts of the participants that may influence acting upon feedback, information
seeking, and help seeking. Second, help seeking did not differentiate between the source of
help, if either from supervisor, colleague, or other parties. Knowing from which source employ-
ees mostly tend to seek help, organizations could, for example, facilitate the interaction with
the best source of help enabling the seeker to learn better and faster. Third, the data collection
was cross-sectional meaning that the data was collected at one point in time. Future research
could adapt a longitudinal approach to investigate the development of types of learning profiles
over time and its interaction with career trajectory characteristics and environmental charac-
teristics. Fourth, we used self-reports to capture learning in the workplace which might cause
selection bias (Heckman, 1979). It might be that only those employees interested in learning

CHAPTER 5 / 119118 / CHAPTER 5
responded to the survey. Still, participants themselves are the first to have information about to
what extent they show learning behavior in different situations. Other alternatives for measu-
ring learning from others might be considered, such as direct observation by other sources such
as supervisors and independent ratings provided by others. Fifth, focusing on work experience,
the number of jobs and the number of organizations provides only a starting point for the mo-
tives for engagement in learning from others. Future research could examine a broader range of
antecedents that influence learning from others. A promising direction could be the interaction
between employees’ motives that underlie acting upon feedback, information and help seeking,
and the learning climate in organizations (Ashford et al., 2003; Garvin, Edmondson, & Gino,
2008; Yang, Watkins, & Marsick, 2004).
5.8 PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
The findings of this study have various implications for practice. Organizations should raise
awareness among their employees on the importance of learning from others. The results shed
new light on understanding that employees are prone to engage in certain learning behaviors.
Employees in class 2 and 3 make suboptimal use of the value of learning from others. Especially
for these clusters, raising awareness of the value of all three behaviors seems important. Or-
ganizations might not be aware of the important role of help seeking and information seeking.
Supervisors can help to empower and facilitate all three behaviors by adopting roles that include
development responsibili