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A Cross-Atlantic View of Training in High Technology Firms with Comparisons
Between Germany, Great Britain and the United States*
James L. Nimnicht
Central Washington University
Don R. Nixon
Central Washington University
Duk Su Kang
Cheju National University (Korea)
ABSTRACT
To survive in their respective industries high tech organizations worldwide must respond and/or adapt quickly to the myriad of changes in their environment. The extent to which they employ contemporary or state-of-the-art training techniques is the focus of the present study. Specifically, data from 123 high tech organizations in Germany, Great Britain and the United States were gathered. Findings suggest differences both between the countries and between functions within the various firms.
Background
Conventional wisdom suggests that there are substantial differences between research and development (R & D) intensive firms, also known as high tech organizations and traditional organizations. For high tech organizations it is generally held that the turbulence and overall uncertainty of the market, the competitive environment, frequent fiscal complexities, not to mention the idiosyncrasies of employees attracted to the high tech arena serve to substantially distinguish traditional and high tech organizations one from the other. However, it has only been in recent years that detailed analysis of these differences has begun to appear.
For definition purposes our paper follows Balkin and Gomez-Mejia (1984) in addressing differences between traditional and high tech organizations. High tech organizations tend to have (1) cutting edge technology; (2) organizational emphasis on research and development; (3) continuous product change/enhancement at irregular intervals; (4) higher rates of employee turnover amongst R & D employees; (5) geographical locations in close proximity to one another; and (6) substantial competition-induced mortality.
Numerous illustrations of the managerial, motivation and training differences between high tech organizations and traditional industry exist. For example, Gamst and Otten (1992) conducted a random sample of over fifteen hundred high tech employees in an attempt to ascertain differences in job satisfaction from traditional industry. Interestingly, their findings unveiled no significant differences between high tech and traditional employees.
Nimnicht and Nixon (1996) conducted cross-cultural research concerning the effectiveness of various training methods employed by high tech organizations in New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Australia and England. Data from the five countries were obtained via questionnaire from over 142 high tech organizations
* JBAM has invited the authors of this article to submit it for publication
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employing between 4 and 91,000 employees. Not only was the effectiveness of training techniques found to vary between organizational function (e.g. production versus marketing), it also varied from country to country. High tech organizations in Australia overall found job rotation to be the most effective training technique used. American high tech organizations favored mentoring for their R & D employees, with New Zealand preferring to utilize conferences and Canada stressing the coaching technique. Numerous other differences in effectiveness, both between functions and countries, were also reported.
Conceptual development of performance evaluation in high tech firms from a political standpoint has been considered by Martocchio and Ferris (1991). Specifically, they suggested a framework consisting of eight different propositions relating to high versus low organizational performance and various approaches to employee performance evaluation and reward. As suggested earlier, the environmental turbulence associated with high tech organizations seems to highlight differences from traditional organizations.
In another study, Milkovich, Gerhart and Hannon (1991) addressed managerial compensation differences between R and D intensive firms and traditional organizations. Much personnel-related and compensation-focused data were gathered over a four year period from 110 organizations. Findings of the study confirmed differences between traditional and high tech organizations in the pattern of their compensation practices. For example, managers from high tech organizations were often found to receive their remuneration via long-term incentive and other bonuses, whereas traditional-firm managers did not.
One final approach to the evaluation of high tech organizational differences focused on the extent to which traditional versus contemporary training methods were utilized by high tech organizations in Canada and the United States (Nimnicht and Nixon, 1993). Among other findings, Canadian high tech organizations seemed to stress the utilization of formal and traditional training techniques, while United States high tech organizations regularly utilized techniques such as coaching and interning.
Like several of the earlier mentioned studies our desire here is to further expand what we know about high tech organizations by considering the cross cultural aspect. The purpose of our paper is to use high technology organizations as a backdrop upon which to consider the differences in training techniques employed between Great Britain, Germany and the United States.
Methodology
In an attempt to understand the extent to which high tech organizations engage in contemporary training the current research collected data from high tech organizations in Germany to be included with existing data from Great Britain and the United States. The same instrument, Motivation and Training Techniques Survey (MATT), was employed for the three countries. This instrument was developed in 1991-2 over a multiple iteration process and has been successfully employed in data collection in both the United States and numerous Pacific-Rim countries. Further discussion of the psychometric properties of MATT can be found in Nixon and Nimnicht (1993).
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In Great Britain, Human Resource Management executives from a total of 297 organizations were sent a copy of the collection instrument. Of the 297 organizations contacted in Great Britain, 42 usable questionnaires were received for a response rate
of 14.1%. The responses from the German firms were gathered at a high-tech trade show in South Korea. Forty firms were requested to complete the questionnaires, and 28 usable responses were received for a response rate of 70%. The firms in the United States had a response rate of 9.8% from a total of 541 firms contacted, resulting in 53 usable responses.
To obtain an idea of organizational size, questions regarding both measures of total revenue and the total number of employees were included on the questionnaire. Data was also gathered concerning the number of employees categorized as Management, Research and Development, Marketing, or Production.
Respondents were requested to indicate on the questionnaire what approaches to training were offered by their firm to Management, Research and Development, Marketing, and Production employees. They were then requested to select those training techniques that they have found to be the “most effective” for the training of each of the categories of employees.
Results
The questionnaire was developed in an attempt to determine the extent of differences in training techniques utilized by firms in various countries. In our original study it was revealed that many of the firms utilized quite dissimilar training techniques for Management, Research and Development, Marketing, and Production employees. The current study provides information on training techniques for each of these groups. The relative sizes of the firms in the study are shown in the following table:
Table 1
Relative Firm Size
CATEGORY UNITED STATES GERMANY GREAT BRITAIN
Avg. Revenue $169 million $377 million $471 million
Range $1 mil.-5.2 bil. $2 mil.-$2.7 bil. $.5 mil.-$7.5 bil.
Avg. # of Mgrs. 317 141 315
Range 3 - 15,000 2 - 3,000 2 - 6,000
Avg. # in R&D 467 281 813
Range 2 - 18,000 2 - 6,000 1 - 15,000
Avg. # in Mktg. 65 1488 705
Range 1 - 12,000 2 - 35,000 1 - 14,000
Avg. # in Prod. 998 4806 955
Range 4 - 42,000 2 - 110,000 2 - 17,000
Avg. # all Emp. 2152 11942 3516
Range 10 - 91,000 16 - 165,000 5 - 52,000
The German firms included in the study were considerably larger than the British and United States firms as shown by the average number of employees, while the British firms were much larger in terms of average revenue. It is interesting that the British firms averaged only slightly more managers than the United States firms while averaging almost double the number of employees. The German firms reported an even lower proportion of managers to employees with a much lower standard deviation.
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The proportion of R&D employees to total employees was relatively similar for the U.S. and British firms, while the German firms reported a much lower percentage of R&D workers to total employees. The British firms included in the study indicated a much higher percentage of workers in marketing than the German or U.S. firms, with the U.S. firms having the lowest percentage. The German and U.S. firms were closer in terms of the percentage of workers in production, while the British firms were somewhat lower.
In previous research, Nixon, Nimnicht, and Silvers (1995), the size of the firm has been shown to be correlated with the utilization of training techniques. Smaller firms tended to use fewer training techniques, but found them to be more "effective." Larger firms used more techniques, but generally found them to be less "effective."
As mentioned earlier, the effectiveness of various training methods varied considerably when considered by the high tech organizations across the different functional areas. In each case training method effectiveness seems to be a function of perception of the individual respondent. The percentage of United States, German, and British firms using particular training techniques for the various groups of employees is shown in Tables 2 to 5. The training techniques are shown in descending order of overall utilization for all three countries. The column labeled “% EFF” refers to the percentage of organizations that commonly utilize a particular technique and their view of its effectiveness within their organization. Chi-square analysis was used to determine the significance of the relationship of the responses for the three countries for each technique used.
Table 2
Utilization and Effectiveness of Training Techniques
Management Employees - U.S., Germany, & Great Britain
UNIITED STATES GERMANY GREAT BRITAIN
Technique Using % Eff Using % Eff Using % Eff Signf
Conferences 68% 25% 71% 0% 57% 0% p=.01
College Courses/Sem. 68 19 67 32 57 38 n.s.
Prof./Cont. Educ. 70 38 36 50 55 57 p=.03
Coaching 49 38 25 43 46 37 n.s.
Mentoring 42 45 18 0 24 20 p=.03
Audiovisual 32 13 21 0 19 0 n.s.
Computer Asst. Tng. 21 0 25 14 29 33 n.s.
Job Rotation 20 45 22 50 20 50 n.s.
Role Playing 21 0 11 33 24 20 n.s.
Prog. Instruction 21 0 4 0 14 0 n.s.
Case Method 13 14 11 0 14 0 n.s.
Simulation Methods 8 25 7 0 24 40 p=.10
Apprenticeship 10 20 11 0 0 0 n.s.
n.s. = not significant
A wide variety of techniques are being utilized in all three countries for the training of Management employees. For the thirteen techniques, four are shown to have statistically significant differences between the utilization and effectiveness for the three countries. Coaching, College Courses/Seminars, Conferences, and Professional/Continuing Education Courses are the most commonly used training techniques for all three countries. Of these four, Professional/Continuing Education was selected as being more effective. Conferences were not indicated as being effective by any of the British or German firms, while this technique was reported as being the most
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A large percentage of firms in all three countries indicated that Job Rotation was an effective training technique for Management employees, but the utilization rate is relatively low (20% to 22%) compared to other techniques. The U.S. firms selected Mentoring as a relatively effective technique and 42% of the U.S. firms indicated that they used it, but it received no support from the German firms and lower support from the British firms. Computer Assisted Training and Simulation Methods are reported to be used to some extent in all three countries, but only the British firms lend some support to these techniques as being effective.
Table 3
Utilization and Effectiveness of Training Techniques
R&D Employees - U.S., Germany, & Great Britain
UNITED STATES GERMANY GREAT BRITAIN
Technique % Using % Eff % Using % Eff % Using % Eff Signf
College Courses/Sem. 62% 21% 67% 32% 53% 55% p=.09
Prof./Cont. Educ. 68 25 39 36 45 58 p=.01
Conferences 51 26 54 7 31 0 p=.03
Coaching 47 28 25 57 50 33 n.s.
Computer Asst. Tng. 30 6 43 8 53 18 n.s.
Audiovisual 32 6 40 9 24 0 n.s.
Mentoring 36 53 18 0 19 0 p=.01
Job Rotation 19 40 21 17 15 33 n.s.
Case Method 11 0 25 0 20 50 p=.02
Simulation Methods 8 0 25 29 15 33 n.s.
Apprenticeship 12 50 18 20 15 33 n.s.
Prog. Instruction 17 0 25 14 24 0 n.s.
Role Playing 4 0 11 33 10 0 n.s.
n.s. = not significant
The primary training techniques used for Research and Development employees appear to be similar to those used for the Management employees. The most widely used are Coaching, College Courses/Seminars, Conferences, and Professional/Continuing Education Courses. The German firms reported lower utilization of the Professional/Continuing Education and Coaching techniques. Conferences again received little support as being effective. Computer Assisted Training and Audiovisual techniques were reported to be used more frequently, but few firms selected them as being effective. For the thirteen techniques, five are shown to have statistically significant differences between the utilization and effectiveness for the three countries.
Mentoring, Apprenticeship, and Job Rotation were selected as being effective by a large percentage of the U.S. firms using these techniques, but the utilization rates were low. The German firms selected Coaching and Professional/Continuing Education as being more effective, while the British firms selected College Courses/Seminars, and the Case Method in addition to Professional/Continuing Education as being more effective. The Case Method received no support from the German or U.S. firms as being effective.
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Table 4
Utilization and Effectiveness of Training Techniques
Marketing Employees - U.S., Germany, & Great Britain
UNITED STATES GERMANY GREAT BRITAIN
Technique % Using % Eff % Using % Eff % Using % Eff Signf
Prof./Cont. Educ. 51 26 39 45 50 62 p=.10
Conferences 51 19 61 21 29 0 p=.04
Coaching 49 46 40 9 41 29 n.s.
Audiovisual 32 13 43 8 29 0 n.s.
Mentoring 38 40 14 0 24 20 p=.08
Role Playing 13 29 36 20 29 17 n.s.
Computer Asst. Tng. 17 0 22 17 29 17 n.s.
Prog. Instruction 15 0 36 10 19 33 n.s.
Case Method 13 29 18 0 19 33 n.s.
Simulation Methods 10 20 14 0 24 40 n.s.
Job Rotation 12 33 14 50 20 50 n.s.
Apprenticeship 12 33 21 0 12 0 n.s.
n.s. = not significant
The most widely used training techniques for Marketing employees were, again, College Courses/Seminars, Professional/Continuing Education, Conferences, and Coaching. Role Playing was reported to be more widely used, primarily by the German and British firms. The German firms also reported more usage of Programmed Instruction for Marketing employees, but this technique was not used as frequently by the U.S. or British firms. For the thirteen techniques, four are shown to have statistically significant differences between the utilization and effectiveness for the three countries.
Coaching, Mentoring, Job Rotation, and Apprenticeship were reported to be more effective by a relatively high percentage of the U.S. firms using these techniques, but these techniques, with the exception of Job Rotation, received little support from the German or British firms. Job Rotation and Apprenticeship, however, were not widely used in any of the three countries. The German firms gave the highest effectiveness ratings to Job Rotation, Professional/Continuing Education, and College Courses/Seminars. The British firms selected the same techniques as being more effective and also included Simulation Methods.
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Table 5
Utilization and Effectiveness of Training Techniques
Production Employees - U.S., Germany, & Great Britain
UNITED STATES GERMANY GREAT BRITAIN
Technique % Using % Eff % Using % Eff % Using % Eff Signf
Job Rotation 47 24 43 25 36 27 n.s.
Apprenticeship 30 38 58 50 45 42 n.s.
Prog. Instruction 38 20 39 36 43 44 n.s.
College Courses/Sem. 40 14 28 25 40 53 p=.08
Audiovisual 46 17 21 33 19 0 p=.03
Prof./Cont. Educ. 38 20 22 17 29 67 p=.03
Computer Asst. Tng. 23 0 21 0 19 25 n.s.
Mentoring 32 29 11 0 10 0 p=.02
Simulation Methods 14 43 14 0 10 0 n.s.
Role Playing 13 29 14 0 5 0 n.s.
Conferences 11 0 15 25 5 0 n.s.
Case Method 4 50 21 0 10 0 p=.04
n.s. = not significant
For the Production employees the most frequently used training techniques were Coaching, Job Rotation, Apprenticeship, and Programmed Instruction. The German and British firms reported using Apprenticeship much more frequently, while the U.S. firms utilized Audiovisual, Professional/ Continuing Education, and Mentoring to a greater degree. College Courses/Seminars were also frequently used by the U.S. and British firms, and to a lesser extent by the German firms. For the thirteen techniques, five are shown to have statistically significant differences between the utilization and effectiveness for the three countries.
The Case Method and Simulation Methods had high effectiveness ratings for the U.S. firms, but they were used by only a small percentage of the firms. For those techniques used by a higher percentage of the U.S. firms, Coaching and Apprenticeship had the highest effectiveness ratings. The German firms selected Apprenticeship and Programmed Instruction as the techniques that were most effective. The British firms also ranked Apprenticeship and Programmed Instruction as being effective, but they gave higher ratings to Professional/Continuing Education and College Courses/Seminars. Coaching received the same rating as did Programmed Instruction.
Conclusion
While the U.S., German, and British firms included in the study reported using a wide variety of training techniques, there was some agreement on the primary techniques to use and on which techniques were most effective. For the Management, Research and Development, and Marketing employees in all three countries, the primary training techniques utilized were generally Conferences, College Courses/Seminars, Professional/Continuing Education, and Coaching. The most utilized training techniques for production workers were Coaching, Job Rotation, Apprenticeship, and Programmed Instruction.
The best agreement among the firms from the three countries was for the Management employees. There was more variation with the Research and Development, Marketing, and Production employees. For the Research and Development employees, the German firms reported greater utilization of Computer Assisted Training, Professional/Continuing Education, and Audiovisual, and less use of Coaching. The British firms also used Computer Assisted Training to a greater extent, but reported less emphasis on Conferences. The U.S. firms supported the use of Mentoring to a much greater degree than did the German or British firms.
For the Marketing employees, the German firms indicated a greater usage of Audiovisual, Role Playing, and Programmed Instruction. The British firms in addition showed a greater utilization of Role Playing and Audiovisual. The U.S. firms again reported a higher usage of Mentoring.
For the Production employees, the main differences between the firms in the three countries concerning the utilization of training techniques involved Apprenticeship, Audiovisual, and Mentoring. The U.S. firms reported a much lower use of Apprenticeship and higher use of Audiovisual and Mentoring techniques.
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The effectiveness ratings revealed some interesting patterns between the countries. The U.S. firms rated Mentoring and Job Rotation as the most effective training techniques for Management and Research and Development employees. For the Marketing employees, the highest rated techniques were Coaching, Mentoring, and Job Rotation (low utilization). For the Production employees, the top rated techniques were Coaching and Apprenticeship. It would appear that the U.S. firms believed that an individualized approach to employee training or exposure to different job situations resulted in more effective training.
The German and British firms appeared to take a different view of what results in effective training. The respondents from both countries ranked Professional/Continuing Education and Job Rotation as being the most effective techniques for the training of Management employees. For Research and Development employees, the German firms selected Coaching and Professional/Continuing Education, while the British firms indicated that they believed that College Courses and Professional/Continuing Education were the most effective. For the Marketing employees, both countries were again in agreement on the most effective techniques. They selected Professional/Continuing Education, College Courses, and Job Rotation (low utilization). For Production employees, the firms from Germany rated Apprenticeship and Programmed Instruction as the most effective. The British firms also selected these two techniques, but included other techniques that they believed were effective for the training of Production employees. These included Professional/ Continuing Education, College Courses, Coaching, Programmed Instruction, and Apprenticeship. Most of the training techniques selected as being effective by the German and British firms were more highly structured, or were external to the firm as compared to the more informal techniques indicated as effective by the U.S. firms.
Of some interest to Human Resource managers is the study finding that suggests that both the usage and effectiveness of various training techniques fluctuates over both the country and the organizational function. An interesting area of common ground is the finding that British, U.S. and German firms all preferred utilizing Conferences, College Courses/Seminars, Professional/Continuing Education and Coaching for their Management, Marketing and Research and Development employees. For Production employees the three countries agreed upon Coaching, Job Rotation, Apprenticeship and Programmed Instruction.
The results from this study indicate the need for additional research on the use and effectiveness of training techniques in high-tech organizations in different countries. Of particular concern would be the reasons for the continued utilization of traditional training techniques that are not considered effective by the organizations.
Additionally, the present research makes no attempt to consider why a particular technique was utilized in the first place. Rather, the attempt was to chronicle usage and perceived effectiveness only.
A difficulty with the current research is the limitation imposed by different training methods being utilized for different purposes or goals by each organization. Future research might systematically classify the usage of each training technique by the type of organizational goals commonly addressed by each technique. Similarly, the effectiveness of a particular training method for a particular designated goal should also
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be considered. Next, it might be interesting to determine the source of the decision to utilize a particular technique and why that specific choice was made. Finally, as additional research is completed on the above mention areas, it would be particularly helpful to develop some sort of taxonomy that would be relevant to organizations prior to the training method selection process.
References
Balkin, D.B. and Gomez-Mejia, L.R. 1984. Determinants of R and D compensation strategies in the high tech industry. Personnel Psychology, 37: 635-650.
Gamst, G. and Otten, C.M. 1992. Job satisfaction in high technology and traditional industry: Is there a difference? The Psychological Record, 42, 413-425.
Martocchio, J.J. and Ferris, G.R. 1991. Performance evaluation in high technology firms: A political perspective. The Journal of High Technology Management Research. 2:1, 83-97.
Milkovich, G.T., Gerhart, B., and Hannon, J. 199. The effects of research and development intensity on managerial compensation in large organizations. The Journal of High Technology Management Research. 2:1, 133-150.
Nimnicht, J.L. and Nixon, D.R. 1996. The question of training method effectiveness in a global context amongst high-tech organizations. Proceedings of the Pan-Pacific Conference XIII.
Nimnicht, J.L. and Nixon, D.R. 1993. North American training: An evaluation of Canadian and United States approaches. Proceeding of the Pan-Pacific Conference X, Beijing, China. 413-415.
Nixon, D.R. and Nimnicht, J.L. 1993. Utilization of Motivation Techniques in Canadian and United States High Tech Organizations. Proceedings of the Pan-Pacific Conference X, Beijing, China. 39-41.
Nixon, D.R., Nimnicht, J.L. & Silvers, R. (1995). High-tech organizations: The effect of size on motivation technique selection and utilization in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Proceedings of the Pan-Pacific Conference X!!. Dunedin & Queenstown, New Zealand.