Psychological and organizational variables associated with workplace learning in small and medium manufacturing businesses in Korea

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between workplace learning and psychological variables, such as learning competency, motivation, curiosity, self-esteem and locus of control, and organizational variables, such as centralization of power, formality, merit system and communication. The studied population consisted entirely of workers in small and medium manufacturing businesses in Korea. Totally, 685 workers were sampled and 388 of them were used for the analysis. The level of workplace learning in small and medium manufacturing businesses was higher than the expected average. All the variables in this study had significant positive low or moderate relationships with workplace learning. Lastly, about 50% of the variance in workplace learning was explained by communication, learning competency, merit system, motivation, centralization of power and curiosity.